


Biting The Bit

by MJ_Magpie



Category: Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Handcuffs, M/M, Masochism, NSFW, Porn With Plot, Sadism, Slash, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-05-13 08:41:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14745575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJ_Magpie/pseuds/MJ_Magpie
Summary: Post s2: Bruce Wayne is forced to deal with the repercussions of having John Doe released from Arkham, and the lines between them become even blurrier than before. Are they more than friends? Less than lovers? Questions Bruce keeps trying to ignore. How many of his friends will he drive away by holding onto John? Why can't he let him go? How far into this dangerous obsession will he let John drag him? And what happens when an outside force decides the clown really needs to be leashed? In the end, who will Bruce choose to protect? ~*New Smut Every Chapter*~Chapter FIVE posted!





	1. Breaking The Boundaries

The sun had peered warily through the fencing of soggy rainclouds when Bruce Wayne had arrived at his office; he had glimpsed it for a few moments through the expansive windows, before the sun seemed to scowl and duck away, leaving the storm clouds to swell and sob endlessly over the already waterlogged city. Somehow, Bruce wasn’t disappointed; he knew that brief sunshine was only an illusion of calm, and that the storm clouds would smother it out in the end.

Fuck. 

He sits at his desk in comfortable, familiar solitude. It’s too early for anyone else to be here, so Bruce trusts he will not be disturbed. A long sigh rolls out of him as he presses his palms to his shut eyes, and for the millionth time, wonders what the hell he is doing.

It has been three days since he had signed the papers for John Doe’s release from Arkham. It wasn’t entirely above board; there had been bribes and favors, but it was kept quiet and thus, below media radar. The grounds were absolutely deserted, save for a skeletal night shift staffing, who all gave him uniquely judging looks as Bruce was escorted through those familiar fractured-bone white halls. He didn’t care about them. 

What he cares about is the monstrous absence left by Alfred’s departure. The manor had always been empty, but now it _feels_ empty; at times, Bruce finds himself on the cusp of speaking to his departed friend, before catching himself with sudden knife sharp sadness. And yet, he can’t manage regret. What Alfred had wanted was impossible; Bruce Wayne and Batman are two sides of the same coin. 

But Alfred had tethered Bruce’s impulses, at times. Without him, well… the simple sum of it is why the hell not?

The staff had reported his sullen nature throughout his weeks spent in the asylum, and yet John looked so _happy_ to see him. Overjoyed to be free --by the hand of his bestie no less!-- John was delighted by another chance to ride the Batmobile, incognito as it was in ripe cherry red. Then, burnt out from excitement boiling over a haze of over-medication, he fell asleep in the back seat during the trip and snored obnoxiously.

What the hell was he doing, Bruce asks himself in frustrated loop.

He takes another steady breath, stubbornly centering himself by sheer will. He will deal with it, somehow. He just needs to figure out how to get through to John, and preferably keep a leash on him until he stops foaming at the mouth and biting at the bit, so to speak. He has seemed like _John_ , more or less. 

Maybe things would work out; more likely, it would all blow up in Bruce’s face. He grimly surmises that he must be a glutton for punishment.

And suddenly there is a hand on his thigh—

\--from a person under his fucking desk.

Purely by reflex, Bruce grabs the offending wrist and twists with cold brutality as he pulls forward, yanking the attacker into a ruthless strike from his knee. Knocking the breath out of people should not feel so good, but it always does. Some people scratch bingo tickets, some people clip coupons, some people do cocaine. Batman beats criminals until they almost wish they were dead. Everyone has their thing. 

Bruce pushes back in his chair to get a clearer look (and potentially kick his idiot in the face) but a rather pale hand catches his ankle, keeping him from going too far. 

The choking giggles that well beneath the desk’s shadow give a very generous hint to the mystery lurker. 

“John!?”

“Wow, Bruce. I’ve taken a lot of hits in my time, but that? That was top ten, easy. You _definitely_ hit harder than Harley. Hey, have you ever tried one of those carnival games where you slam down a hammer and try to ring the bell? I bet you would win me the prize.”

 

“John, what are you doing under my desk?” Bruce asks with the worn but resilient kind of patience he’s always had for his off-kilter friend. 

 

“Oh! I brought you lunch!”

Peering further beneath the desk, Bruce can spot the brown paper bag (decorated with stylish crayon grins that are pretty damn creepy) clutched in John’s hands; he can also see the stark red ribbons of blood flowing from the pale man’s nose.

“I didn’t ask you to bring me lunch—Jesus, is your nose broken?” exasperation wins out in his tone, but there is concern smuggled within it too.

“No, it’s completely fine! My nose always bleeds like that when I get a really good punch,” the green haired man dissolves into smothered giggles, leaning against the wood backing of the desk and smearing his palm through the blood oozing down his face. He looks impressed and pleased and _thrilled_ to see so much fresh wet red coating his hand. By the instinct of some feral thing, John licks the liquid garnet from his skin and the sound in his throat is undeniably savoring. 

 

Bruce feels a sudden assaulting heat rip across his face.

“John, why are you under my desk?” he repeats, with half as much patience. 

“I heard a noise,” he reports, pausing to slowly lick the blood from between his fingers. “I thought it might be that Regina lady, and I know she wouldn’t be happy to see me, after you went all dark side on her in the elevator. You’re so vicious when you make people beg; I _really_ admire your finesse.”

And suddenly Bruce comes to realize he can no longer have John praising his darker desires while bleeding so prettily, sitting between his knees. The heat staining his face crawls clammy down his neck, and the dull waking cadence of arousal begins to stir between his legs. John _really_ doesn’t need to see that; Bruce doesn’t need to know what he would do. This isn’t the first time there has been a flare of sexual tension between them, but so far nothing had come of the sparks on tinder. Bruce is _mostly_ certain he doesn’t want to burn in that fire, but John looks so _good_ when he bleeds.

And he _likes_ it when Bruce hurts him. From the look on John’s face (cognisant, faintly predatory observation through slightly narrowed, toxic green eyes) the baffled billionaire does not for a moment doubt that his extremely keen friend knows exactly what he’s thinking. 

 

“Penny for your thoughts, Bruce? That look in your eyes… seems like you’re chewing on something _juicy_ ,” the faintly greedy grin that stretches those white ashen lips twists something in Bruce’s gut, and his heartbeat kicks a little harder inside his ribs as John’s sharp chin comes to rest on the slice of chair left empty between his companion’s thighs. “Sharing is caring.” 

“Would you just get out from under the—“ clean dress shoes clap softly to the carpet for a solid perch; Bruce means to push back, allowing his friend ample space to move—

\--But John catches his ankles in a vice of boney fingers once again, preventing his cohort from wheeling away. 

“No need to be shy buddy… I know that look; the _savouring_ that comes from cracking skulls and breaking skin, the way it gets your motor running…” John breaks into a jagged series of giggles, “I know what you look like when your blood gets hot.” 

“…”

In that moment, stunned silence is all Gotham’s guardian can manage. How had this situation spun so disastrously out of control? Why can’t he force a proper denial from between his teeth? 

 

“Speechless, huh? You don’t gotta worry about a thing; this is definitely not my first go at a pink Popsicle. I know what I’m doing, so I definitely won’t bite you or anything.” Bruce’s cognition manages to process just enough of that for him to spit out one highly articulate reply:

_”What?”_

“Oh, curious Bruce? Or maybe, jealous? Was Bane my first go at the blow, or maybe it was Mr. Freeze…?” the unstable young man bites down a few ringing chortles as he allows the captive silence to linger. It doesn’t last long, because within moments John is busting into a howl of laughter, and he continues.“Not likely! Bane probably tastes like a soggy taco, and Freeze? I’m pretty sure my tongue would get stuck. No, no, it was all _Harley’s_ doing.”

Fumbling with his bafflement is much easier than grappling his sudden vicious carnal cravings, so Bruce replies “ _Harley_ taught you how to…?”

“How to give _the best_ blow job, yeah.”

“… _Why_?”

“She said it was a valuable negotiation tactic! Not one she would use, so she thought I should know how, just in case. Who knew the know-how would come in so handy?” There is absolutely zero shame in John’s manner as he leans forward those few vital inches, and paints his tongue along the semi-soft flesh being slowly constricted by the fabric of Bruce’s suit pants. The bright cobalt eyed man hisses sharply between his teeth and a moment later his hand forms a brutal fist in greenish locks that smell of his own shampoo. 

He can’t believe John just—but the lingering damp and warmth of saliva between his legs doesn’t let him deny it or repress it. The friction plays on rapid repeat in his brain, steadily stoking his blood.

“ _John_ ,” Bruce wears a discrete warning snarl, but his wants are murky through his actions. He doesn’t pull John closer; he doesn’t push him away; he doesn’t break that Mad-Hatter-to-Alice eye contact that corrodes the air between them. 

“You’re curious, aren’t you? I guess I could tell you the story; I hope you don’t mind a few naughty details.” 

“I really _don’t_ need to hear—“

“The scene is set in Arkham asylum, probably a few weeks before we met. I was at one of my sessions with Harley, and some electrical problems had been messing with the surveillance all day. But you know her, Bruce. She always came prepared.”

The grip tightens on ghoulishly green tresses as Bruce pins John with a sharpened warning stare. Whatever this is, hearing this _story_ is not making it any better! Beyond that, Bruce can barely grasp the threat behind the warning beaming from his own glare. Stop this, stop this or—what? 

“That’s enough John,” he speaks with the washed out shadow of a growl; from where the aggression stems is this moment’s mystery. Why he feels agitated, cornered and impulsive is not as important as the fact that he feels it all, creating the toxic chemical fog that sweats over his thoughts.

“So she walks out in her white coat-- _just_ her white coat, and this huge red strap on! Seriously, I didn’t think there was any way that was going to fit in any part of me, but I tell ya, she proved me wrong! First, she had me sit under her desk, between her knees, almost exactly like this…” when his tongue peeks out again to paint moisture across his lips, Bruce wonders whether it’s a memory or an attempt to goad that drives the action. He knows he _can_ shut John up, but the mechanics of how are currently lost to him in a haze of muggy confusion.  
“She said that first, it’s best to get the guy’s dick nice and wet; to show me, she held my hair --kinda like this!-- and dragged my mouth, up and down, along the shaft until everything was _soaked_. Then, she starts bucking her hips, rubbing against my tongue until I got the idea, and started sucking—“

Abruptly, the luxurious office door opens like a harsh revealing light. Instinctively, Bruce sits forward through the bare inch of space between himself and his secret desk troll, and invades a few inches further as he herds John completely underneath the desk. One slick black shoe pins the oddball man at his thigh, keeping John hidden in his cramped position. Bruce can only hope that John is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

But that’s a bad choice of words, and Bruce isn’t an optimist. 

Regina strides through the doorway with an aura of politely (yet thinly) veiled disdain and matronly authority, while John silently works the zipper down Bruce’s pants and slides his clammy-warm hand inside to coax his dick from the cover of his clothing. 

The young CEO can hardly fathom his own reality; he can’t move, he can’t stop John; so does it matter whether or not he really wants to? 

“Good morning, Bruce. I’m sorry if this is an inopportune time, but we need to have a discussion and you’ve been avoiding my calls,” she is prim and superior, like a human gazing upon a disgusting yet pitiful insect. Or maybe a rodent. 

Bruce feels the sweat begin to bead upon his brow. He needs her gone _now_ , he can’t do anything to indicate John’s presence, especially considering he feels that savoring tongue stroking his dick like an act of eager and devoted worship and it feels so fucking amazing that he can hardly think in a straight line. 

“Regina,” he speaks her name by way of greeting, but it comes out rougher and shorter than he means it too; suddenly sandy dryness fills his mouth and clumps uncomfortably in his throat. He _can’t_ be letting this happen—but what the hell are his options here? It takes a good portion of his will to hold a straight face, making it difficult to devote enough thought to derive some clever solution. Bruce subtly grits his teeth and tightens his iron grip upon the reins of coherent thought, but damn if it isn’t a white-knuckled struggle with John’s sweltering slick tongue running messy circles around the turgid tip of his dick.

He’s already hard as steel, feeling his pulse crawl up the thick vein that runs up the length of his shaft. He shifts very slightly, unable to do much more than firmly steeple his fingers. He had known when he signed John out of Arkham that it would mean trouble-- but this isn’t exactly what he’d anticipated! 

To the elder woman’s subtle brow lift of surprised insult, Bruce responds by clearing his throat and briefly showing a stock apologetic smile. “I’m here early to explore a few potential personal business ventures— and I was hoping to be left undisturbed. Are you sure this can’t wait until regular hours?” he makes a real heartfelt attempt for genuine friendliness, but fumbles into the territory of edgy and impatient. He’s suddenly sinking into dizziness, and the urge to tip his head down and watch John devour him becomes another thing to rigorously test his self-restraint.

“Yes, I’m quite sure. Your actions have been very disturbing as of late, Bruce. I had thought the debacle with Mr. Cobblepot would be the end of your questionable behaviors, and yet here we are once again.”

Bruce bites down on a razored gasp as silken warmth clings to the skin of his cock, descending a few ambitious inches as John slides the slick sex into his fervent mouth. His rough edged groan of relish sends devious vibrations through Bruce’s dick, and he twitches against the tight confines of John’s cheeks and tongue.

“And where exactly are we? I’m sorry Regina, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Bruce is mildly amazed with himself for putting so many words together and managing to make sense. Certainly Batman is accustomed to working under duress, but this is on a level all it’s own. John’s obsessive devotion makes itself clear in the hungry reckless way he sucks and swallows, sheathing the tip of Bruce’s cock in the sleeve of his throat. A small droplet of sweats creeps gradually down his temple towards his neck.

He’s nearly overcome by the thought of gripping grassy green locks and heedlessly fucking that forever smirking mouth. 

“So you don’t remember the incident in the elevator? Your so called associates? How you treated me? Threatened me?” Understanding finally dawns upon the young CEO, and he’s exasperated it took his distracted mind this long to catch up. He had been wondering when that particular interaction would come back to bite him. “Your actions are completely inexcusable, that is why the board and I have decided—”

On a typical day, Bruce would have had almost no patience for this nonsense. With his dick sinking sweet inches deeper into John’s throat, patience is the antithesis of Bruce’s mental stock. 

“Regina I am sorry you were frightened, but had you come and spoken to me I would have explained,” irritation tints his tone, and a little strain breaks the rhythm of his words. Through the miasma of disorientating pleasure, Bruce still manages to be annoyed that no one tried to speak to him about the incident in the elevator. It seems like everyone finds it too easy to see Bruce Wayne as a bad guy, a criminal, a brute. It gets tiring constantly tiring to prove them wrong while walking the tightrope of right and wrong. 

“I was doing undercover work for The Agency. I had no choice, but I promise you were never in any real danger.” Finally something cracks her veneer and she pauses, turning the words over in her head. It’s agonizing waiting for her to process. Tepid saliva melts down his cock and trickles downward to his balls; they ache with the wet friction and his dick gives another eager twitch inside John’s throat; the thinner man chokes as his nails bite into Bruce’s ankles, but he doesn’t pull back. The hot fleshy walls of his throat struggle and squeeze as silky slick saliva wells inside his mouth, and he just keeps choking down his dick. 

“But… there was an employee; pressing assault charges for injuries caused by… you… have proof of your Agency employment?” The wind seems to have abandoned Regina’s sails, leaving her in undecided stagnation, which Bruce has absolutely no time for. He stomps out the trembles that threaten his hands under a ruthless armored boot. 

But his head spins with assaulting pleasure nonetheless; somehow he has the presence of mind to flip open his laptop. The clacking keys create a too thin white noise blanket over the sounds of John’s sloppy blissful distress as he continues to choke. 

“I’m sending you Amanda Waller’s contact information as we speak,” says the secret vigilante, with a little more patience than he allots petty low life criminals. 

His heart slams into his ribs rhythmically as his pulse speeds, an alarming knot of pleasure tightening between his legs with every new scrape of friction. Mercifully John has pulled back enough to take a few gasping breaths, releasing Bruce from the blissful torture of the confines of his throat; but it’s a short lived reprieve. Now it’s a coil of milk colored fingers jerking his iron sex beneath lips locked and sucking worshipfully at the sweetly aching tip of his dick, and it’s all Bruce can do not to buck his hips and plunge deeper into this visceral madness. 

This shouldn’t feel so fucking good, it can’t feel this good--

But it _does_ , and it’s getting difficult to think past quickly approaching precipice of his self control; the crashing crescendo of physical bliss breathes hotly against skin, tenderly threatening to tear into him at any moment. 

Still Bruce keeps his eyes fixed upon the flustered business woman, silently willing her to leave. There is a bell-like chime from her hip, and Regina pulls a sleek black smartphone from her pocket. She looks to Bruce with sheepish, apologetic confusion, because right there in her inbox is authentically Amanda Waller’s contact information. Obviously, this is no bluff. 

“Well in that case, I… this warrants some investigation, you understand. I’ll begin looking into the matter.” She slips her phone back into her pocket, and while she is outwardly calm, Bruce knows her well enough to know she’s still undecided about his actions. A problem he will deal with when there isn’t a Batman fanboy sucking him off under his desk. 

“Please do,” is all the english Bruce can manage, tone tight and sparse with dwindling patience. 

When the door finally shuts behind her, Bruce’s hand is in John’s hair with the merciless bite of a leg-snapping bear trap.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snarls, yanking John back. Wet swollen lips drag off Bruce’ dick-head until releasing with a quiet, obscene pop. That stinging self satisfied grin needs to be wiped the fuck off his face. 

“I’m doing your taxes, buddy; isn’t it obvious?” those soft sinister little chuckles send puffs of breath against the damp flushed tip of his cock, and Bruce feels his mind spin as John hums with deep satisfaction. “I guess I shouldn’t let you drip all over your five thousand dollar suit, huh?” Acidic green eyes spear Bruce with an intense stare as John lewdly licks the budding moisture at the slit of his cock. 

“ _John_ ,” he hisses the name like a curse, like a warning, like he’s about to burst all over the eager man’s sickly smirking face. Gritting his teeth Bruce swallows another rough groan; he’s barely aware of the voices outside of his door, and he knows that the early and eager employees might be trickling in to work. His floor isn’t overly populated, with him having the penthouse office… Still, there’s definite risk involved. Why does thinking of that make his blood burn pleasurably down the tip of every vein? 

A kyanite gaze finds his fallen friend as though Bruce is searching for words; the hand locked so viciously around eerily green locks suffers the tiniest of all trembles. 

“Got something you wanna say?” John goads with subtle savoring sadism, a kind of cognizant shadow living beneath his lidded eyes; it’s a scalpel sharp awareness that Bruce has seen slip now and then, and glimpsing it now raises all kinds of impulses that Bruce free-falls through. It would be difficult to continue looking so smug with Bruce’s dick slamming down his throat, for example… 

But his attention fractures and breaks when his office door politely introduces another visitor with a warning creak.

And in strolls Amanda Waller, looking like a hangry cat who lost her canary breakfast. Her demeanor is till rather cool and collected, her usual self righteous confidence draping her like a royal cloak. Bruce can tell immediately that she’s got some bone to pick, and can’t scrape together enough optimism to hope this will be quick. Beneath the desk, it seems as though John has paused to listen. 

The tides of his pleasures ebb and recede little by little, pulling him back from the edge of enraptured oblivion. A few more droplets of sweat tread warily down his brow. 

“Good morning Mr. Wayne,” she greets professionally, her irritation somewhat obscured. “I just ran into Mrs. Zellerbach outside your office. She seemed uncertain about your previous undercover involvement with The Agency; don’t worry, I assured her it was all above board.” Ms. Waller, professional salesperson of specialty snake oil. Her small smug smirk betrays her. “You’re lucky I’m here to smooth things over for you; maybe you’ll even manage some gratitude.”

“Is that why your here, Waller? I thought The Agency’s Director would have more important things to do than come running to my rescue,” he’s too rattled to hide his suspicion, but he knows it’s valid as a flare of temper briefly scorches her confident composure.

“I do,” she replies with as little panience as Bruce, not the least bit hesitant to meet his eyes with a challenging stare. 

“I’m here because one way or another, you managed to spring your psychotic sidekick from Arkham, and I find that concerning, Mr. Wayne. I’m here, because I wanted to give you a chance to lessen my concern, if you think you can. Actually I’m morbidly curious to hear your rational, so let me ask you outright; why the hell did you have John Doe released?”

Mentally Bruce paws through many crumpled papers of questionable rational, looking for the most plausible; it’s a question he’s already asked himself in frustrating repetition, so he’s already tried to piece together some manner of justifying logic for why he took John home that night. 

Below, Bruce can feel the quick and shallow beat of John’s breath against his aching cock, and another compulsory twitch thuds him against the other man’s flushed dark lips. They’re inflamed from such ceaseless greedy sucking, and the blood beneath his pallad skin paint his mouth red and delicious. Bruce catches a glimpse as his eyes jump down for a split second, and sees the blood bright grin threatening to enwrap him. Panic and thrill war relentlessly behind the jail-bars of his of his will, viciously spiking his pulse and drenching his veins in adrenaline. Red, _red_ lips, almost like _Joker_...

But Waller is waiting impatiently for an answer, so Bruce defends with the first semi-rational thought that comes into focus.

“I’ve been to Arkham, Waller. I know what it’s like in there; despite the money Wayne Enterprises has invested, the place is still a wreck. He won’t get any help there.” All things considered, Bruce is fairly impressed with his tone; he doesn’t sound like he wants to throw her out the window, and he doesn’t sound like he’s suffocating on conflicted delectation, either. 

“But he’ll get that help from you? Don’t you set a _fine_ example,” her subtle sarcasm slices discreetly, but it takes far more than that to make Batman back down. What begins to splinter his attention is the breath-soft friction of moist lips tracing up his cylinder sex; John’s touch is unnervingly gentle, setting Bruce upon a sharp edge; forcing him to focus. Worse,is that it’s not enough-- it becomes impossible for Bruce to ignore his desires when they flare so fiercely, whispering the threat to override his better judgement. His lips press into a thin line as he feels a deeper shade of heat staining his face. It takes severe focus to drag his thoughts together. 

“Better me than those quack job doctors. You know they released him once already, right? By their own judgement? This way, I can keep closer tabs on him.” He’s very aware of the thin ice on which he treads; the ears of both Amanda Waller and John Doe focused acutely upon him. 

“Really,” she sounds bluntly unimpressed, one sleek brow raising while the corners of her mouth twitch slightly downward, warning of a pending snarl. Amanda Waller has no time for games, and her patience is thinning rapidly. “And why do you care enough to stick your neck out for him?” her tone implies there is no reasonable answer, and Bruce isn’t entirely sure she’s wrong.

“John is… my friend,” is the naked answer Bruce finds beneath all his discarded crinkled excuses. It isn’t adequate, and it isn’t enough, but it’s all he’s left with. It had been what he’d told John, when he sat partly crucified to that electrical panel, and it remains unchanged. Apparently John is happy enough with his response, which he demonstrates with the lavish lewd lapping of his tongue. Bruce covers the swallowing of a growl with a well placed cough while his toes clench inside his needlessly expensive shoes.

“Your… friend,” the fearless Director speaks the word like it leaves a rancid taste in her mouth. For a moment, she looks as though she’s ready to launch into a ferocious tirade, but then she stops. She takes a deep breath, and sighs as though she is extremely tired. “Listen, I know you’re having a rough go right now; Foxx is dead, Alfred walked out of your life, even that cat thief has been AWOL. But John Doe is not the man to fill that void.” Waller isn’t so much sympathetic as impatient and flat, as though she’s explaining basic addition to a math scholar who had lost his mind. 

“No one understands John like I do,” another statement dragged reluctantly out of him by the absence of any passable lie, and no mental capacity to create one. “I’m the best equipt to get through to him,” this he can state with semi-steady certainty; he knows that it is true, but he can’t convince himself it’s overly plausible. There is a _chance_ no matter how infendecimily small. The concealed misfit still seems to enjoy the tune of these unwilling yet honest confessions; his mouth seals sweetly under the head of Bruce’s dick, and impatient intent has him swallow zealously, encasing Bruce’s dick inside the squeezing walls of his throat in one singular moment. It’s all Bruce can do to remember to breathe as his pulse speeds like a manic jackhammer and electricity rides down the web of every nerve. His eyes ache to clench but he holds Waller’s gaze and swallows thickly, finding a cracking dryness on his mouth which he tries to banish with a quick swipe of his tongue. Maybe he could have called his assistant for water, but he’s too preoccupied with his very own fanboy gagging delightedly on his dick once more. 

“That might be true, but I am no optimist Mr. Wayne. The way I see it, that maniac will drag you down with him. You thought playing The Pact was blurry? I’d like to know how the hell you classify this.” She squares off in a dominating stance, her arm inside the slick stormcloud grey sleeves of her suit cross forebodingly beneath her bust. Her blistering bister gaze cuts through the panes of her black plain-yet-chic glasses. She’s got him under the scalpel of sharp observation, ready to read between the lines of even the most minute response.

When the misfit man withdraws for a dizzy gasp, his smirk stretches as he watches the precum swell into a lewd wobbling pearl upon the tip of Bruce’s steel hard sex. Only his lips entrap the little leaking slit, and he suckles joyously and savors the taste. Bruce might have cracked the rim of his desk had he the freedom to grip it; restless energy builds in his bones and his blood, winding him tighter and tighter while he’s forced into compliant stillness. He hopes the red blotting his face can be mistaken for a flush of anger. 

“I told John I wouldn’t abandon him, and I don’t plan on breaking my word. So get to the point Waller, and get out of my office.” Such brutal honesty alchemised with such potent impatience immediately rusts his swiftly crumbling patience. 

For a split second, Waller looks genuinely shocked; when the apaul begins to darken the lines of her glower and disgust curls her lip, Bruce believes for half a second that she knows _exactly_ what is happening beneath the cover of his lavish desk. She looks utterly furious, but in a split second the heat from her temper dies and she charges the forward with cold detachment, reaching into her suit jacket with such valkyrie-like fury that Bruce is convinced for a fraction of a moment that she is pulling a gun on him. However, before his survival instincts have him brutally disarm her, he notices that what the stormy business woman is not holding a gun at all. She righteously slams the item upon his desk, before placing her palms against the polished wood and leaning in to loom over Bruce in his seat. Her eyes narrow into burnt amber shards as she invades his space, unintimidated by such proxy. Bruce wonders if she can smell him sweat inside his stifling suit. 

“Do you know what this is?” her intention to have him speak it aloud is deeply concerning.

“A shock collar,” he answers thickly as the nearing climax causes his dick to twinge inside the blissfully clenching space of John’s mouth, and the physical tell is met with the eager ruthless jerking of his dick inside thin biting white fingers. John’s comprehension of the conversation shows in the testing clench of his hands; he’s edging Bruce to that blurry area between pain and pleasure, and keeping still ranks suddenly among the most difficult things he’s ever done. He doesn’t know what he wants to do; if he wants to rip John off of him and throw him at a wall, or grab him by the hair and jaw, and fuck his face until his throat is too raw for him to scream.

Speak. For him to speak.

“That’s right; the same model I used on Bane, Freeze, and Quinn. The same one you are going to use on Doe.” Amanda’s entitled confidence fades into a dead-serious stare. When she speaks next each word is deliberate, clear, and cold. “Collar and leash your dog, or I will do it for you.”

The Agency’s Director gradually removes the needles of her observation, but the bite of her stare lingers. Promptly the dignified woman stands straight and rears her shoulders; she turns sharply upon her silver dagger heels and strides fleetly towards the door. Just before she reaches it, Waller turns a stoney yet smug stare towards the seated man.

“All I want is a little peace of mind; I hope it’s not too much to ask for,” she speaks with false graciousness poorly concealing dominating demand. The next moment she is gone, and the door seems to sigh in relief as it’s finally pulled shut. 

Bruce grabs John’s hair and drags him back, sliding his dick from the blissful torment of his sweltering hot mouth. But firm fervent fingers continue to mercilessly pump him, and Bruce releases a ragged breath he had not realised he’d been holding. Sweat clings to his skin beneath his clothes and makes him feel stiff and muggy, forming the precursor for the urge to get undressed; that thought gets nipped right in the bud. 

For a few suspended moments, there’s just that alarmingly flushed grin and the gritty texture of a tugging vice-grip dragging him inevitably closer to the edge before the plummet into visceral pulsating release. Between his legs the blood burns beneath his skin, and John’s fingers are becoming deliciously wet from the precum drooling down his dick. 

Hooded green eyes are home to the shadows of wicked satisfaction; without saying a single word, the brunette gentleman knows that John is enjoying watching him squirm on the very precipice of the edge. Something inside Bruce wants to crush that satisfaction beneath a ruthless boot, to make him rue it-- but the details of his desire are evasive and out of focus. 

“Are you _fucking crazy_?” Bruce hisses, the threading of his breath slowly coming undone. 

“Look who your asking!” There is a prerequisite and following laugh on either side of John’s statement, and the glee in his expression is so potent it’s practically acidic. “Don’t act like you’re not getting off on it,” John drives his point with a few deliberately tight strokes, threatening Bruce’s tightly stretched skin with the the graze of his nails. “Because you are, Bruce. I can see it on your face. I can feel it as you stiffen in my hand,” that smug goading statement sends a dangerous crack through the cement and steel dam of Bruce’s self control. He’s always leashed somehow, always holding back in everything that he does. There’s always such dire consequences if he relents, if he flinches, for even a moment… People live and die by his decisions, and the consequences of his lost or kept control. 

This time, do the consequences even matter?

Probably, but not quite enough in the moment. 

“Move your hands.”

“Come on Bruce, I can feel that you’re about to unload; just _give_ it to me already--”

“ _Move. Your. Hands._ ” For a fraction of a second John’s eyes widen with a flash of sheepish shock; on occasion Batman could force a yield from Joker with the right cutting stare or shadowy scowl. The right silent intention, or wordless threat. It’s always a high stakes gamble, but this morning the pot is different; it’s a risk with no fallout in failure. A risk with no backlash. 

For the moment.

John’s jerking grip loosens just enough for Bruce to swat away his hands, leaving the man beneath the desk in a brief state of befuddlement. 

Until a brutal fist finds a familiar home in wet-grass tresses, and a merciless vice grip clamps at either side of his sharp narrow jaw. A startled exclamation is muffled behind the heavy girth forcing itself into John’s mouth, along his tongue, and into the sinfully suffocating squeeze of his throat. Their tandem groans intertwine, carnal satisfaction in the gravel of their voices. Bruce’s head swims as he finally lets go, and begins to brutally buck his hips, spearing John’s throat with merciless repetition. Immediately John’s body tries to ease the vicious invasion with a coat of slick clinging saliva, and his mouth oozes obscenely around the hilt of Bruce’s dick. 

Their eyes lock with a corrosive intensity as Bruce slides one hand around the back of John’s neck, and locks him firmly in place. He continues to watch as the thirst for air grows to a burn in the other man’s chest, fingers biting to bruise upon the back of a seemingly sunless neck. Meanwhile, stray snow colored hands wander restlessly; they slip deftly beneath suit jacket and undershirt shirt, finding the clammy skin concealed beneath. John’s fingers creep from Bruce’s sides and circle towards the small of his back where they find a spot to dig in his nails. Instinctive retaliation for the pain has Bruce’s hips jolt with careless animal-like brutality, yet a deliriously delighted groan spins sinful vibrations around the flesh forced inside. John’s hands pull eagerly, low on either side of Bruce’s back, encouraging-- demanding the other man fuck his face with absolutely no regard for his swelling sense of suffocation. 

Quiet wisps of growls begin to leak between Bruce’s clenched teeth as he starts to waver on the razor’s edge of the sweet shameful climax. He feels feverish and foggy as he watches himself fuck those too red lips and sink deeply inside; he feels his pleasures spike as John grips him against the growing need to tremble. 

And suddenly Bruce is smashing through the crescendo of his pleasures, half wild on the carnal release for which his body had been so starved.John’s throat is so tight Bruce can feel the warmth of his own cum clinging to his dick in the too strict confines. His hips jolt and force John’s lips to the base of his cock, and Bruce finally allows his own head to tip back and his lips to part with a smothered silent roar. 

When his grip jerks John back, it is only enough so Bruce’s spurting dick can paint his face whiter. Possessed by a sudden feral sadism, the dominating man grasps his sex at the hilt and guides the oozing tip. Thick white lines of slick seed splash upon John’s gasping mouth, over his eyes, and into his sweat-drenched hair. As the final spurts of semen drool down his dick, a darkness comes to live briefly upon Bruce’s face; he guides his cock to smear his cum slowly and deliberately all over John’s face, until he’s finally spent and boneless, and sinks into the support of his chair. 

“Nn… I get so hard when you’re fucking ruthless,” John hisses, his voice in tattered rags, but his eerie grin preserved in unnerving width. “When you break limbs with your bare hands, when you crush throats under your boot-- when you _enjoy_ your sadism… that’s what really gets me off.” John degrades into quiet high pitched chuckles that seem to stretch minutes. 

Bruce rests his heavy head against the back of his chair, wading through the next few minutes with listless complacency. What excuses could he possibly make for himself? There is no undoing this, and there is no denying John will fixate-- hell, maybe elevate this kind of discretion… but it’s already done, and Bruce is already repressing how much he wants to do it again. How much he wants more. 

“For the last time, will you get out from under my desk,”he growls, too raw and drained to bother with attempting anything like patience. This having nothing to do with how deliciously disheveled John looks after a good face-fucking. Panting. Blood stained. Spattered in cum. 

“Sure buddy, whatever you say,” John is rather graceless as he climbs from beneath the desk, and deposits the crumpled paper bag that contains Bruce’s lunch next to him. “There ya go,” he beams, almost managing to not look entirely unnerving. “I didn’t know what you liked so… I just grabbed a little bit of everything.” 

Bruce can only stare at John in stern bewilderment, still feeling no urge to peel himself from his chair.

“... Thank you,” he replies, once he clues in that John seems to be awaiting a reply. 

“All you gotta do is ask,” with a feral grin the other man replies, and the hair on the back of Bruce’s neck stands. There is a tense silence between them that grins like a cheshire cat sharpening its claws. That cruel cunning shows in the gleam of John’s eyes as his smile creeps wider, and he gives a wisp of a chuckle from low in his throat. 

The next moment, he’s is smiling brightly and offering a quick little wave. “Well, I’m off! My agenda for today is packed,” he spins on his heels and heads for the door, but Bruce isn’t at ease with the idea of John strolling down from his penthouse office, roaming through his workplace, looking obviously… _disheveled_.

“Wait,” Bruce barks quietly, unable to keep the exasperation from his tone. 

“Yes?” John turns, watching with what appears to be genuine surprise. Bruce tries to think of something to say, anything to keep the other man around until the obvious flush leaves his telling pale skin. 

Only one thought keeps returning to him, damn it.

“... Why don’t we share the food you brought. I skipped breakfast, and I’m starting to regret it.”

Eyes like polished malachite brighten like bloody Christmas.

“Sure! I can blow off my other appointments for you, Bruce.” And as the misfit man turns again and strolls back towards the desk, Bruce asks himself for the millionth time;

What the hell is he doing?


	2. Straining The Leash

It’s impossible not to notice how good John looks when he’s so prettily wrecked; the flush has not yet completely faded from his fucked-swollen lips, the blood and semen drying, cracking, and flaking on his paler than marble skin. A slow contemplating breath leaves Bruce as he manages to sit up a little, and fix John with a hard edged stare. 

Now what? 

Meanwhile the man with the ghoulishly green locks strolls casually towards the desk, and plants his butt upon the large smooth surface. His fingers coil around the edge of the surface while his feet dangle, mismatched shoes dipping in and out of the shadow beneath that had served as his deviant hiding spot. And considering John’s small self satisfied smirk, Bruce has the sudden realization that it’s very possible the sporadically clever John Doe could have very well planned things to go just this way. Just as likely, it could be a convenient, lucky-unlucky chaos that happened to result in … whatever this is. It’s always hard to say, with John.

Who is currently taking up the lunch bag he had left upon his buddy’s desk. He haphazardly dumps the contents onto the otherwise neatly organized space, creating a chaotic splash of the contained items. The ‘lunch’ seems to be a haphazard mix of this and that, as though someone had been allowed a mad-dash two minute shopping spree in a convenience store. At first glance the selection appears to be random, but as the cool eyed businessman continues to peruse the pile, he begins to notice that some of the selected snacks just happen to be among his favorites. 

Pretzels, spicy jerky, and chocolate covered coffee beans. There’s also bottled ice coffee, trail mix, and a miniature mountain of what appears to be mismatched Halloween candy, which accounts for at least half the pile. The standard chocolates are included, along with candies and treats covered in foreign letters and strange, semi-unnerving sales mascots. Upon closer inspection, Bruce notes that the coffee John brought is also the iced version of the drink he had ordered from the cafe where they had roleplayed that rediculouis date. 

“Funny, you happened to grab a few of my favorites,” Bruce remarks offhandedly, though not without a muted note of suspicion.

“Oh, did I? Wow, lucky guess! Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket,” John chuckles briefly to himself before snatching up some kind of sweet treat (is that… chocolate covered gummy bears?) and popping them into his mouth. It amazes and unnerves the nocturnally caped crusader how easily the other man’s expression can shift between adorable to ghoulish.

It’s at this moment Bruce notices the few stray napkins that had fluttered from the crayon covered lunch bag, and is silently and invisibly grateful for something with which to clean up John’s face. 

“Uh-huh,” the brunette man agrees flatly, finding himself less and less willing to believe John’s ignorance. “Too bad, I would have been impressed if you’d done some detective work,” he remarks, taking up the semi-cool glass bottle, and popping off the cap. He fiens complacent disinterest but he can practically feel the cogs turning in John’s head, and he knows all he has to do is wait.

“Well,” the malachite eyed man begins a little too casually, “if I didn’t trust my amazing intuition, hypothetically, it would be easy to fish some grocery receipts from the trash.” 

And now everything makes sense. Figures, considering how casually he spoke of clipping Bruce’s picture out of the paper. For years. The cool cobalt eyed man isn’t even surprised, at this point. There is no denying that John Doe is an unstable individual who has completely fixated on him, but, anyone else would hardly know what to do with him, either. 

At least Bruce can keep him on a leash; or so he keeps telling himself. 

And along that train of thought, Bruce finds his gaze drifting to the collar that Waller had left upon his desk. The idea of putting it on John… it doesn’t sit right with him, but there is a cold logic at the back of his mind stating it would be a wise failsafe. He’s seen John lose his mind before, and he’s not optimistic enough to think it won’t happen again. It’s only a matter of time until something triggers him, and what exactly is the young CEO supposed to do then? Any collateral will be his own fault…

But everything John became is already Bruce’s fault, as well. A small frown touches his lips and his eyebrows drift down to form a solum line as he sits in stern pensiveness. The colorfully dressed young man tips his head in faintly animal-like curiosity, one dark raw emerald eyebrow lifting as he slips into a befuddled frown. 

“Are the pretzels stale, Bruce? You look like you’ve got a bad taste in your mouth,” John observes, and the concern that glimmers briefly on the shine of his eyes cracks Bruce’s heart a little inside his chest. He had used John, they both new that; he had manipulated a very unstable person’s emotions, and it resulted in chaos. But beyond that, it resulted in John’s feelings for him. This tangled mess is his own damn fault, and Bruce knows it. 

“It’s nothing; come here, you’re a mess,” he grumbles in grumpy evasion, taking up a napkin and folding it neatly. The only bathroom is down a daunting hall, and Bruce doesn’t trust his desk stow away not to do… _something_ , if left unattended in his idol’s office. John leans in slightly, appearing mildly curious, and Bruce wets the corner of the napkin with a quick swipe of his tongue. The thrill the watches light those chemical green eyes makes Bruce’s gut twist, and he doesn’t care to classify why; desire, disgust, anticipation… none of the options are easy to swallow. 

“Stay still,” he grumbles in barely muted irritation, beginning the slow and inefficient process of cleaning off John’s face with a barely wet little hand napkin. 

“You did make quite the mess,” the sly approval in the other man’s tone sets Bruce’s teeth on edge; he tries to corral his sudden edgy mood, but something in the way those toxic green eyes gleam makes him feel like he’s being baited. Goaded. 

Dared. 

“Is that the kind of thing you like, buddy? Because I gotta tell ya, I didn’t mind,” in fact, John’s tone implies savored enjoyment. “I’d be game if you wanted to go again. Any time, anywhere. Just say the magic word.” The casual way in which the oddly dressed man speaks is what makes everything feel so suddenly surreal. Obviously something stubborn and mired in denial inside Bruce’s mind is tempted to throw this memory into a box, and throw the box into the ocean, but that _definitely_ can’t happen with John telling him that he’d happily take another load of cum all over his face. 

“Preferably not right now,” Bruce finds himself stiffly muttering, stubbornly narrowing his focus onto the task at hand. Clean John up. Just do that, and at least he can leave the office safely. The dark haired man feels the nagging of his famillair habits; abscond, isolate, reflect. John tends to throw all those careful mechanisms right out-- no, _through_ the window. 

“So later?” the flashier man shoots back with a mischievous lengthy grin and a string of high pitched rasping chuckles. “Let me get out my appointment book.” Bruce has. Absolutely. Nothing to say to that, and quietly resents the prickling heat upon his face as he continues to clean the mess from John’s skin. As he continues, the frustrated to be flustered man feels his eyes drawn back towards the collar that had been left expectantly upon his desk…

There’s no way he would ask John to put that on-- it’s completely insane. That notion however does little to smother the sudden stark mental image of his own powerful hands sliding some kind of collar around that pale slender throat… 

Bruce feels a knot in the pit of his gut and chooses to steer his resentment for this whole line of thought at Waller herself. This electro-shock collar is her creation-- her means of control. 

But what if-- _when_ John _does_ eventually try to kill someone? What if Bruce could have stopped it? How would he feel, then?

“It’s ugly, right?” John drawls with disapproval, between bites of some kind of green slime oozing chocolate that’s shaped vaguely like a beetle. Really where the hell did this stuff even come from?

“What is?” the young CEO’s attention snaps back to the ghastly green gaze that suddenly probes him, uncertain of John’s meaning but already halfway to suspicious by some kind of instinctive default. Almost like he knows that somehow, John is up to no good. 

“The collar. So _rude_ that she didn’t even think to color coordinate it for me. It would completely cramp my style-- clash with all my outfits!” A snarl of displeasure darkens the shadows that live in the startling creases of the pale man’s face, and he pokes the offending collar with a distaining finger. It’s almost impossible to tell if he’s being serious or not, and suddenly, Bruce finds himself in a very awkward, very precarious situation. If he’s brutally honest with himself, he doesn’t want to use the collar on John-- but the smallest bit of paranoid precaution is making him undecided. But does he really need to make a decision, to test the waters of John’s reaction? It’s a topic he’d be hard pressed to bring up naturally, but since the perfect opportunity has fallen right into his lap, well...

“And... that’s all it would take to get you to wear it?” Bruce often benefits from his quick silver tongue, but now is one of those moments he feels he’s fumbled his composure. Perhaps he asked a little too casually? Or perhaps it is simply that John knows him well enough to follow his train of thought. Would he spark into sudden anger, realizing what his bestest buddy is quietly contemplating?

“I don’t know,” the misfit man wears a puzzling expression,“are electric shock collars a kink of yours?” the blunt and casual way the other man speaks makes Bruce feel off balance, like the floor suddenly slanted severely beneath him. 

That. Was not the response he had envisioned.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” he despises the heat that flares up on his cheeks, and the way John can make him feel suddenly cornered with merely the right words, or look. Having one’s back to the wall inclines impulsive behavior, and that’s probably exactly where John wants Bruce to be.

“Your answer would effect my decision, duh,” John retorts a though such should be obvious, and as the moments tick by Bruce begins to realize he’s not getting an answer out of John unless he concedes something in return. 

“I’d really rather not tackle this subject right now,” is his hasty reply that allows him to linger in vaguely sick feeling indecision. It couldn’t be _that_ simple to get John into the collar, would it? He doesn’t seem immediately disgusted by the idea-- and Bruce suddenly understands that the words he choses next could make this very difficult, or _very_ easy. He could, _hypothetically_ manipulate this… wildfire attraction between them, and maybe John would agree of his own accord. The idea feels utterly insane for numerous reasons, but it hovers like a humid fog in his mind nonetheless. 

But could he really… _seduce_... John into something like that? _Should_ he? 

Oblivious (or seemingly so) to his companion’s state of inner turmoil, John continues on merrily with the thread of conversation he fancies the most. 

“Why? I’d love to hear what floats your boat; been wanting to ask what gets you off-- but if you don’t want to tell me, I think I know you well enough to guess,” that razor’s gleam lights John’s toxic green eyes for half a moment, and they both understand that he’s exactly right.

This conversation is happening whether Bruce wants it to, or not. Because unless he shuts John’s mouth himself, the other man will just keep spinning his eerily accurate deductions. 

By some small mercy, he’s at least managed to get John’s face clean, for the most part. He could easily pass as the loser of a bar scuffle, as opposed to the true reality behind his crumpled appearance. Bruce tosses away the red tinged sodden napkin, scanning his friend with a sternly appraising look. What’s it going to take to get him to drop this? 

“Later. When I get home,” the tactical businessman tacks on a vague time to keep the other man from pestering for a specific ‘when’. “I have too much work to do right now. You put me behind, you know,” he can’t stop the undercurrent of fondness upon which his words ride; beyond the need to define it, Bruce has affection for his occasionally murderous little oddball. That in itself is a special kind of messed up, but it’s true, no matter how many times Bruce has tried to claw his way out of it.

And besides, how fair of him would it truely be to offer Tiffany a chance at redemption, and deny John? It’s a reason he can strongly tether his actions too, even if it’s not the whole truth. Thankfully, the two of them have yet to cross paths again, and Bruce can only pray that rare streak of luck will continue; not that he expects prayer will do him any good. 

“Didn’t hear you complaining, buddy,”John wears a feral smirk while his grin adopts a tinge of wickedness.“But… I guess I can entertain myself for the day. Of course, I’d rather be here killing time with you…” the sly undercurrent to his friend’s voice tells more than enough to clue in the cobalt eyed man; this is suddenly a negotiation. 

“Alright, alright, what do you want, John?” Bruce cuts right to the point with threadbare exasperation; he wants to be alone, for a few measly hours, to sort out his thoughts on this whole christmas light covered trainwreck. Letting John out of Arkham in the first place was questionable at best, but now things are easily thrice as complicated. What does Bruce want? What does this mean? What should he do? All trains of thoughts derailed and strewn with madly blinking lights, when his chaotic clown-like buddy is at his side. John’s always makes it so difficult to think in a straight line… Somehow he always ends up distorted and dizzy. 

And the trend continues as the leaner man dips forward, carelessly invading Bruce’s space until there is barely a breath between them; his grin may as well be one of those ridiculous joker-rangs for all its razor sharp wickedness. 

“...Kiss me,” there is a faint growl beneath his tone; a deviant dare that lives in his gleefully bright yet scalpel sharp eyes. He’s so close-- enough that the breath of their words intermingle in the slim small space between them. 

“... kiss you? Isn’t it a little...soon?”Oh lord, what idiocy has just tumbled clumsily out of his mouth; too soon for _what_? Is this some kind of-- They’re not even-- but he had already--  
None of these are thoughts he allows to fully form; instead he stubbornly shuts them out and quietly grits his teeth. Bruce feels a knot tighten below the pit of his gut, and he doesn’t really care to define the reason for his pulse beginning to pound in his ears, either. He just wants John to go away, before--

Before Something happens. The morning’s events are already more than enough to process. He doesn’t need things to escalate further; to fall further down the rabbit hole. This is already bad… but it could still be so much worse. 

He had already used John, and as a result, it twisted the impressionable little psycho further from any resemblance to sanity. The hunger for Bruce’s companionship has already driven John to incredible depths of madness… and this new carnal entanglement could almost certainly turn out worse.

Bruce understands that, but it does little to banish the lingering gentle embers beneath his skin. He resents it only slightly less than he craves for more. 

“Oh, good point,” John replies as a light of understanding brightens his gaze, and his smile turns sheepish while faintly raw giggles slide through it. “How long after giving a blow job should you wait to kiss someone?” he brings his hand to his mouth and hastily checks his breath. “Whew, no more cock breath,” John announces with pleased relief. “I just ate a bunch of chocolates, I think we’re good.”

That… was not what Bruce meant at all; but what did he mean, exactly? He’s being dragged down by the gravity of his realization: it would be easier to just give John what he wants, rather than keep clumsily attempting to dissuade him. 

(And maybe that’s a lie to make things easier, but it’s quick and easy to swallow, and allows Bruce to act without thinking too deeply upon it; a hastily, haphazardly rationalized impulse straining the leash for sanction) 

“Fine,” Bruce all but growls, “ _one_ kiss, and then you’ll leave?” John follows his whims like a cat with a laser pointer, but he’s always managed to come through on his promises; Bruce still trusts his word, though he knows it’s probably foolish. He just can’t disregard all the good John has ever done for him. He always strains to see the good in people with which he shares a kin darkness; Harvey, Selena, and now John. Hell, even Tiffany. It seems like a bad habit he’s gotta quit; but if he can’t find light in the darkness of others, how can he possibly sustain it in himself? 

“Scout’s honor!” John chirps with a beaming smile, utterly delighted that the deal has been struck. Bruce levels the other man with a flat stare, but the corner of his mouth twitches in a tiny smirk that threatens to grow if he doesn’t smother it. Seriously, John? What a delightful little weirdo.

“There is no way you were a boy scout,” Bruce replies with a dry humor peppered very faintly with affection; he hardly knows where it comes from or why it is there… but it is, despite all the logic that should deny it. Bruce inwardly frowns at the unavoidable conclusion that there is something seriously wrong with him. 

“I could have been, I just don’t remember,” John plays off his response with mock offense; but he drops it quickly like a discarded candy wrapper; mismatched shoes hook under the arms of Bruce’s chair and pull him closer by the easy slide of the wheels. The young Wayne’s spine goes rigid and he neither leans towards nor away the other man as he looms closer. He’s only a few stray inches above the cornered brunette, thanks to his perch upon the desk. 

“Here’s your formal invitation; I’m waiting Brucie,” pure physical reactions prerequisites anything that could possibly explain them; a chill crawls like a spider up the back of his neck, and again his heart persistently pulses. His Fight or Flight programing is severely skewed, but then, he’s never been in a situation quite like this one. Just get it done, he sternly repeats to himself; it’s the easiest way to get John to leave him alone.

That’s the lie he tells himself, anyway. 

Bruce takes a quick breath, almost as though he’s about to jump into cold water, and John really would have started giggling if their mouths were not suddenly crashing together. The strange angle inclines Bruce’s neck into an odd bend, and some hidden instinct causes his hand to bite at the back of John’s neck and roughly yank him into a more pleasing position. The ghostly skinned man gasps and it shares the breath between them. Shock and pleasure stun him for a few precious moments and it is so, so satisfying for Bruce to crack that smug, arrogant demeanor his unlikely companion occasionally slides into. 

The full throated groan that pours into Bruce’s mouth fills the kiss with subtle vibration, and the pleasure of it completely disorientates him. The other man’s tongue swipes eagerly at his lip, and some baser instinct (or perhaps, repressed desire) dictates Bruce dominate the kiss completely; is that really what he wants, the conflicted man wonders. In every other instance, he’s so willing to trust his initial instinct; it’s his natural inclination, and it’s strange to him that something else in his logical mind keeps insisting he should not get in this deep with a man as unstable as John Doe. 

But the lean and lithe man slides fluidly forward and downward into Bruce’s lap, effectively smothering any stuttering hesitations. John melts against the other man’s chest and suddenly there is so much heat and friction between them that it’s impossible to think about anything other than his nerves frying on an overdose of blissed out physical pleasure. 

Everything is spinning so rapidly out of control, and Bruce isn’t sure he can deny that there is a part of him that wants it to; that small kin shard of madness that lives in both of them. 

A growl lurks in his throat, the only brief warning before something animal wins out, and Bruce’s teeth snap hard on the insistent tongue pressing impatiently between his lips. The way John gasps and goes boneless for a few seconds sparks a pleasure that resonates deeply in the other man’s bones; it knots Bruce’s gut and suddenly his heart is galloping. Kissing John is all new territory, but _hurting_ him… that’s too comfortably home for Bruce to feel at ease with. But it’s familiar, and it’s _good_ , and suddenly Bruce finds himself biting brutally at John’s lip and feeling a rush like a sudden high as he all but feels the pain ricochet through his companion’s nerves. The sound John makes is pure, starving pleasure, and he’s heedless of his volume while a faint flavor of copper coats the kiss. 

“Shhh,” Bruce hisses sharply against that raw red mouth, and the way John nods with eager obedience is like morphine in the secret sadist’s blood. But John doesn’t waste another moment, doesn’t give Bruce a chance to think; one hand twists demandingly around that smart red tie and pulls, while the other bites down hard at the back of Bruce’s neck. It strikes him that the motion is so perfectly John; chaotic, demanding, yet equally pining and imploring. A frankenstein mashup of taking what one wants, and quietly pleading for more. 

Bruce feels his grasp on himself slipping further and further away; a few more seconds, is the repetitive promise, which graduates quickly into another minute or two, as the time sluggishly passes. Their mouths tilt and lock together, tongues stroking and struggling against one another inside the warm wet space.Their lips become slick as the kiss teeters towards sopping wet, saliva mingled and creeping in thin shining rivets down each of their jaws.Bruce is _barely_ aware that his phone is vibrating in his pocket-- and the last thing on his mind is answering the damn thing. 

On the forefront of his mind is the heated heft of John’s turgid dick at the bottom of his stomach; his fellow deviant is already hard as stone, and the way he shifts in discomfort due to the strict confines of his colorful pants has a sadistic smirk tugging the corner of Bruce’s mouth. With a frustrated impatient growl, John’s hand darts down towards his own faintly shimmering purple belt and aggressively wrestles the green buckle. 

The kiss breaks as Bruce’s fingers lock like a handcuffs around John’s wrist, and their eyes meet in a sudden heated stare down.

“Let go,” John sneers and twists his wrist, worming in Bruce’s lap at the steadily worsening discomfort of having his swelling dick mercilessly squeezed. 

“No,” is the gravelly reply on a rasping breath; Bruce would like to say he’s stopping this, but in truth, he really just savors having the other man writhe in his lap. “I like you like this,” there is a panther’s purr of approval in Bruce’s tone. While John waffles between fighting back and surrendering to this cruel condition, his companion’s free hand finds its way under and beneath one button up silk shirt-- that is probably actually his, but that barely registers in Bruce’s thoughts. 

The bruises on John’s ribs are still tender in healing, so he sucks in a sharp breath when strong unyielding hands grasp him there and squeeze. The pain paints a thick haze in John’s toxic, intoxicated eyes and his lips hang apart as he takes eager shallow sips of air. Bruce bites his own lower lip when he feels the other man’s dick twitch slightly against the confinement of his clothes. It’s a persistent heated weight against his lower stomach, allowing him not one moment of reprieve from the evidence of John’s desires for him. 

… and Bruce’s damn phone is still fucking vibrating. Thoughtlessly he tugs it out of his pocket and tosses it onto the desk, where it continues to buzz obnoxiously; at least it wasn’t vibrating too near to his lap anymore. 

“Bruce, my clothes are a little _too_ tight--”

“I know,” comes the smokey reply as again Bruce’s powerful hands stroke and squeeze along the pale canvas of bruises that cover John’s ribs. He’s so responsive-- so needy, practically rubbing against Bruce’s abbs through the bind of his clothes. A battleborn hand finds John’s hip and rests there, lazily encouraging the wanton motion. 

“Sadist,” John accuses with approval beneath his sharp edged snarl. 

“Masochist,” the other man shoots back without a second of hesitation.

“ _Sado_ masochist,” John corrects with genuine disdain.

And now, Bruce’s phone has vibrated its way across his desk towards his laptop, against which it is now buzzing with even more insistent demand. 

“Give me minute,” feeling edgy and fed up with the irritating noise splitting his attention, Bruce snatches up his phone and the screen immediately lights up, showing something like 23 missed texts from one Tiffany Fox. With absolutely no mental capacity to even begin to comprehend what’s happening, Bruce scrolls to the most recent messages to see if she seems to be in immediate danger.

_‘We can hammer out the details later, if you’re okay with it?_  
Hello?  
Bruce?  
I really need to know!  
Like, right now!  
Am I coming to Wayne Manor, or not???’ 

_\--_

_‘Yes, later. Talk to you then’_

Is the hastily typed reply that Bruce prays will appease the insistent girl, because two seconds later his phone is on silent and he’s tossing it onto the black leather lounge chair across the room. 

“Your all mine now,” John speaks with a predatory purr as the phone flies away, and Bruce cannot help but reply with a feral smirk. 

“You got your kiss,” he deflects, taking great pleasure in teasing his friend in the fever of his obvious arousal. John replies by blowing a wet rasberry. 

“You really gonna let me walk out of here like _this_?” he eagerly grinds his swollen sex against Bruce’s stomach to drive his point, and adds while his growl breaks into a plea, “Pretty please? With a cherry on top? I’ll only need your hand for a minute…” his raw breathless giggles blur the line between jest and seriousness, and John lurks happily between. 

And then the quiet knocking on his door spikes Bruce’s temper; he has every intention to ignore it, but far sooner than he expects the portal cracks and reveals the very timid gaze of his new secretary. The poor young man looks like he’s about to faint, vomit, and poop bricks, in whatever order comes to him. Which is fair, considering the stabbing glare John skewers him with.

“Can’t you see we’re _busy_?” there is a notable warning snarl beneath his tracing-paper thin mirage of friendliness; how quick John turns to anger is no small concern to Bruce… but how much can he say before becoming a hypocrite? Isn’t all of this because of his terrible example? 

The first time the timid younger man tries to speak, not a sound comes out of him. Immediately as flustered as determined, the smartly dressed sir finds all of his voice all at once, as he boisterously blurts “I’m really sorry to interrupt Mr. Wayne but I thought you would want to know-- I mean, I didn’t know you are, _busy_ , like this-- but I still think I should tell you that Mr. Pennyworth is here.” 

Apparently Bruce’s world has not turned upside down enough times for one day. Alfred had left-- packed his things, flown halfway across the world. He couldn’t possibly be… He wouldn’t come back, after Bruce had chosen Batman over him. 

Would he?

His murky water gaze is a clouded conflicted blue as he turns his focus to John, who meets him with a stinging nettle stare. It lasts for a few volatile moments before the slighter man’s posture deflates with an extremely over exaggerated sigh, and he climbs, bow legged, off of Bruce’s lap. 

“So I’ll uh… tell him you’ll be right out?” the freckled man barely manages to avoid stuttering, already inching away slightly from the barely cracked door. 

“Yes Danielle, thank you,” his voice is raw and tight as Bruce sits up, and momentarily presses his palms to his eyes. For a few precious moments John is quiet, allowing the frazzled Wayne aire a bit of time to catch his breath. By the time the moonlight vigilante stands and straightens his tie in a reflex of getting a handle on himself, John has found himself by the door to the office, waiting with an irritated, slightly sulking expression on his face. 

“Don’t forget, later tonight, we’re gonna have a nice long _chat_ ,” the way those green eyes glint threaten shivers down Bruce’s neck, though he’s not sure exactly why (or more likely, he doesn’t want to fathom the cause). Feeling sweaty inside his suit he walks stiffly towards the lounge chair and rescues his phone, which doesn’t seem to be alight with another slew of messages. Well, there has to be one small mercy in the day. 

“Stay here, please. Until we’re gone. It’s easier that way.”

John turns on the heels of his mismatched shoes, his back to Bruce as his green gaze ghosts the storm clouds through the huge wall sized windows. 

“Easier for you,” the pale man remarks with a touch of darkness that immediately puts Bruce on edge. The quiet giggles that flutter about sing softly sinister on his perception, and Bruce feels the tendrils of tension coil around every muscle and stain every vein. 

“But I don’t mind, Brucie. Not at all. There’s just oooone more thing I’d like before you go.”

As the brawny brunette steps forward he draws closer to the other man; Bruce is bound up in concern of every origin; his pulse pounds on the notion that he’s playing with fire, and one wrong step could burn everything to the ground. When his hand clamps around John’s shoulder (tembling with silent laughter), he is uncertain whether it is to comfort or confine him. 

“That being…?” Bruce asks with a slow streak of suspicion across his words. 

“A quick kiss goodbye!” John announces suddenly.

The paler man whirls around too quick and his arms snap like a shutting trap around Bruce’s ribs. The kiss is over too fast to deflect it; it’s just a moment of warm friction on his throat before the other man reels back and places a few safe strides between them. His smile might have been among his sweetest, but the smeared red lipstick that adorns his mouth like an enticing wound knocks all the breath from Bruce’s lungs. Too many thoughts surge to occur all at once, and he can’t stop to sort them. Should he be worried that John is still carrying around mementos of his Joker persona? Is he reading too much into it? Perhaps his friend was driven purely by mischief…?

John’s eyes tell no secrets and his smile is pristine and toxic red, like snow white’s apple. He gives a little wave, smug satisfaction simmering beneath his expression. “Don’t you got somewhere to be, buddy? You can stare longingly at me later tonight.” 

A cruel shock of heat stings Bruce’s face, and a reflexive scowl darken his features; though from the way the other man continues to beam like a feral Cheshire cat, he imagines the intimidating effect is rather undercut with the glow of his blush. Even as he leaves the office, Bruce feels the telling heat creep down the back of his neck. He steals a few moments to breath and clean the lipstick from his throat. 

Stepping out from behind the partition, Bruce greets his only remaining family with a warm smile strongly insisted by his overflow of affection for the silver haired gentleman. They have had differences of opinion that blossomed like strangling weeds in an old garden. Yes, Bruce had chosen Batman, but he had also chosen John, when everyone else (Alfred among them) was shouting for him to give up on his downward spiralling friend.

But here he is, standing in the luxurious lobby outside of the expansive CEO penthouse office. He still looks a little odd, dressed in casual but kept clothes in colors softer than stark black and white. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever disagreements they had, Bruce is undeniably happy to see him now. 

And it appears that Alfred feels the same. The smile Bruce finds on the face of his oldest companion is tired but genuine and heartfelt. It lives for a few breaths before primly confined exasperation changes the tinge of his expression. Alfred adopts a professionally proper composure (probably by sheer reflex) as he speaks.

“I’ve cleaned enough blood off your clothing to know that is indeed lipstick,” the elder man remarks with a faintly worried yet not unaffectionate dry humor. “I do hope I wasn’t interrupting an important meeting.” It feels familiar to be gently teased in such a way, though it doesn’t stop the second acid wash of blush across his face as he realizes that there is indeed a smear of blood-candy red smugly staining the otherwise pristine white of his undershirt. 

“Nothing I couldn’t reschedule,” he mumbles, unable to keep every ounce of sheepishness from his voice. 

“Well then, shall we stop somewhere to eat? It’s just about brunch time, and unfortunately, the plane food left much to be desired. That… and I’d like a chance to speak with you uninterrupted.” That does not bode well, but that’s not near enough to steer Bruce away. 

“Of course Al; follow me, I know a place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, chapter 2 is done! This will be one of my Porn With Plot projects-- got a rough idea of how to continue, but also gonna keep going with the steamy smut, because there always needs to be more JUCE porn in life. I KNOW WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT. 
> 
> So... I may continue, or this may just be additional smut? LOL, who knows! 
> 
> I really love thoughtful comments!!~ The comments from the first chapter are what encouraged me to keep writing <3 Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos, everyone! They make me so happy and I really, really love knowing that some other fans out there had a good time reading my work =)
> 
> Feel free to check out my [tumblr](https://mj-magpies-daydreams.tumblr.com)! When I am writing stuff I occasionally throw sneak peeks up there ;)


	3. Tearing The Sheets

Even the front door sounds exasperated as Bruce finally drags himself inside his expansive, luxurious home. The lights are on to greet him, which means John is already here somewhere, no doubt lurking in some shady corner ready to pounce with his plethora of carnal curiosities. Bruce hopes he can scrape together a few moments for himself, still mulling over the very recent memories of Alfred’s unexpected visit. His oldest, dearest friend politely refused accompanying him home for dinner, and while Bruce can’t say he’s surprised, he still had hoped against hope that maybe Alfred would go against his better judgement, and join him.

But he didn’t, and Bruce doesn’t have the luxury of not knowing why. A solum, reflective expression makes stone of his face as he numbly steps down the hall, reflexively going to fetch himself a cup of something caffeinated. 

_‘I needed to see you, Bruce. I’ve heard… some rather disturbing things, and I have to ask you something, face to face. You will promise to be honest with me, won’t you?’_

The hallway remains indifferent to Bruce’s grey mood; it looks the same as always, just as it did when Alfred was here and the world made some kind of sense. When he knew exactly who he was and what he was doing.

_‘Whatever brought you here, I’m happy to see you Al. Have I ever been dishonest with you?’_

_‘When you were eight and I asked if you stole the box of shortbread from my things and you told me no. Such fond memories, but I’m not here to speak of that.’_

The starkly orange twilight blazes through the humongous kitchen windows as the pensive man enters the room, shrugging off his suit jacket and draping it neatly over a chic white kitchen chair. Finally, the smell of something burnt slaps him from his melancholy reflections and Bruce seats himself in the moment, fine tuned mind immediately attempting to piece together what might have happened to produce such a smell. 

John didn’t set something on fire, did he? It’s a sarcastic thought, but it’s probably one of the more likely scenarios. The keen detective scans the kitchen as he turns about the counter and heads towards the stove. 

The smooth solid surface has been haphazardly cleaned, leaving a thin streaky residue of burnt-something-or-another and dried on soap. In the chef’s kitchen style sink, there are a pair of previously immaculate silver-sheening pots, now caked in what had once no doubt been food, but is now burnt and charred into the likeness of crusted lava. In the recycling bin is a small mountain of cans that had once held spaghetti sauce, and a couple of boxes that had homed gluten free spaghetti noodles.

And finally, Bruce locates the source of the sour-burnt smell inside the stylish steel garbage container tucked neatly into the corner of the kitchen-- that being the somehow gelatinous blob of charred noodles and sauce that also managed to exude crispy little flakes of what Bruce can only assume is pure agony. How the hell had John turned food into this? 

Still, a small reluctant smile nags the corner of his lip, replacing the stubborn frown. It’s pretty obvious that his well meaning impromptu housemate meant to cook him dinner, but failed spectacularly. But where had John gone, post mad dash clean up? A small wispy concern pesters Bruce’s attention; hopefully the other man didn’t manage to burn himself along with all the food, but then… the once clown vigilante had healed up from far worse. 

_‘How can you ask me that, Al? You know it’s more complicated than that.’_ Buzzing memories pester his mind like a swarm of flies, which he swifty shoos as he sweeps down the adjacent hallway. For some reason his instinct is to head for his room, which turns out to be exactly the right place. As the befuddled man approaches the slick black french doors, he hears the rain-like spatter of the shower from his attached bathroom. Well, missing person’s case solved. 

Uncertain now of what to do, Bruce burns a few moments lingering in the door to his bedroom. Should he… check on John? Is that strictly necessary? Is it overbearing or fussy? Is it merely an impulse of affection? Having spent so much time alone, the man with the lapsis-lazuli eyes has little idea of what to do with such powerful, illogical fondness for the unstable yet occasionally adorable man. Stiffly he places himself on the edge of a small plush leather lounge chair and tries not to let his thoughts wonder. 

_‘It’s quite simple, Bruce. Yes, or no?’_

_‘I… I can’t answer that.’_

_‘For all I’ve done you owe me a straight answer, at the very least. Now tell me the truth, please…’_

Bruce closes his eyes, pulled down by the crushing gravity of the memory of the following moments.

_‘... did my leaving drive you to let John Doe back into your life?’_

And Bruce had struggled in silence, peering at Alfred with helpless indecision. 

_‘Well, if you can’t answer, than I’m afraid I’ve run out of things to say. I’ll be staying in The Grande Gotham Hotel in room 189 for the next few days, if you manage to find your answer.’_

_‘Al, please don’t leave like this. Why don’t we--’_

_‘I’m sorry Bruce, but I can’t. The truth is I don’t know whether to be torn up by guilt or livid with you or both. I… I need your answer to sort through all this nonsense in my head. I do hope you manage to find it before my returning flight.’_

“Bruce?” 

Quick cobalt eyes snap upwards and catch John framed in the bathroom doorway; lazy plumes of steam roll out from behind him as the paler man strolls forward, whistling something odd to himself as he roughly towels his sopping green locks. A second skin of moisture clings to him by the will of the thick heavy steam that billows from behind, and aside from that John wears nothing but one of Bruce’s plain white button up shirts. It hugs his form quite intimately from the insistence of the lingering moisture upon his skin.

“You’re lookin’ kinda blue,” John continues as he leisurely tosses the towel into the laundry bin and turns his attention on Bruce proper. “Need a listening ear? I took care of dinner-- by which I mean I ordered take out. It’s one of your favorites! At least, the history on your phone shows a lot of calls. I’ll see if I can’t get a _smile_ on your face before the end of the night.”

That was quite a few words and implications flung at Bruce’s tired mind and for a moment he loses himself in stunted processing. The hem of his borrowed shirt clings high onto the lean and subtle carved curves of John’s thighs, only a bare inch away from complete revealing indecency. The brooding brunette feels a knot coil in his throat as the observation strikes him. 

And John continues to prowl closer. 

“Lose something over here, buddy?” giddy goading threatens to crack his voice into giggles, but there’s a defined predatory tinge to his smile, as though it ought to frame fangs.

( _As though it ought to be red_ )

“Are you wearing _another_ one of my shirts?” he deflects, using the only words can knit together into something coherent. He’s never seen so much naked snow-shine _skin_ ; John’s always dressed in gaudy colors or bloody bruises, and it mildly alarms Bruce that he is so allured by the other man’s unguarded body. A Cheshire grin like a crescent moon glows on John’s face as he adapts a sense of cat-like mischief. 

“Well, yeah. The couch change I scrounged was only enough for one outfit at the thrift store. I got that, and the fashion atrocity that is my arkham uniform,” his expression paints brief but blunt disgust onto his angular features, “I should burn them,” he mutters with enough thrill at the idea to softly suggest a flirtation with pyromania. But just like that, the darkness bleeds off his smile and the shadows in the lines of his face bleach and fade. Suddenly, he looks delighted, excited, and perhaps… nervous? “Do you think I could go shopping? Potentially, uh… you know...withyou? So, we, not I. Not me, us. Together. At once.” John’s smile implies he’s quite proud of himself for getting through that in one piece. 

Is this even real life? It baffles Bruce how rapidly John can cycle between adorable, psychotic, brilliant, and so… well, innocent is definitely the wrong word; maybe… _sincere_. Bruce’s mouth starts moving before he’s made a conscious choice, and he replies with his instinctive kindness, which is not always worked in his favor.

“Of course; someone’s gotta make sure you stay out of trouble,” which is said as a subtle tease but also happens to be absolutely true. 

“Really?” the pitch of his his glad giggles float upwards, “That’s great! I mean, I know what I like, but if you ask _really_ politely-- really _nicely_ , I might let you pick out something for me; let ya’ dress me up in whatever gets your blood pumping. That sound like a good time, Brucie?” 

The Wayne aire feels a small scowl form in rebellion to the flashfire of heat across his face. John is close enough to set his teeth on edge; close enough that he can smell his own soap and shampoo emanating from the other man’s bare skin. The eerie oddball’s smile is perfectly poised on the edge of sweet and darring. Tension begins to tighten his every muscle like coiled springs as Bruce struggles to rein in the sudden stampede of impulses that ride his blood, but one quiet grim part of his pessimist’s mind wonders why. Lines have already been crossed, could things get any more complicated from here?

Yes, of course, but that does nothing to stop Bruce’s gaze from combing every inch of eerily chemical colorless skin from John’s toes to his face. It doesn’t stop him from imagining sliding his hand beneath the damp shirt and snapping the buttons off in shameless eagerness to see beneath. It doesn’t stop him from wanting to crush that lingering lunar smile under his own rough demanding mouth.

As though John can sense the inner stalemate that has his buddy frozen in momentary rigorous processing, he takes advantage of the man’s stunned hesitations and slides his arms around taller, broader shoulders. His slender ghostly hands tangle together behind dark brunette tresses and John leans in, resting his chest against Bruce’s without any concern for breaching personal boundaries. His body is still damp and warm and Bruce cannot help but notice how different it feels having John pressed against him with so little to conceal his bare form. He’s leaner than he looks, and something animal in the pack of Bruce’s mind savors that John is smaller than he is.

Not that that offers any real advantage; they have both honed themselves into dangerous weapons. But for some undefinable reason, it pleases him in the pounding of his pulse that he stands a little taller, and a little wider than the other man. A cheap, but flashy illusion of control; a fantasy. 

“If you don’t want me to wear it, you could always take it off of me,” the ever grinning man suggests with an eager dare spicing his expression. Bruce burns a few too many moments watching a fat friendly water drop lewdly caress the slope of John’s throat from his ear to his collar. The keen detective feels his mouth suddenly dry and some deep instinctive impulse has him attempt to moisten his lips with his tongue. The miniscule action sets the grin several notches wider on John’s face. 

“Well, I suppose it’s better than you walking around naked,” is the reply Bruce manages through slightly gritted teeth; he feels his will to try and control this chaos slowly begin to splinter. He thinks of Alfred, either ripped up by guilt or livid that Bruce would willingly allow such danger and instability into his life, as though wasting all the good and sense his guardian had raised him with. He feels as though he’s being backed into a corner once again, and he’s rapidly running out of reasons not to let go and free fall further down the rabbit hole. 

“Is it?” John questions all too sweetly, sugar in his tone and a narcotic gleam in his eyes. “Sounds like you’re making assumptions.” His chuckles trail and rasp as he leans back a tiny fraction, just enough to undo a few buttons and reveal a scandalous slice of bare skin. There’s shadows of bruises that show up like artful watercolors on the unnaturally pale canvas of his skin, and Bruce suffers the sudden visceral temptation to see what other shades he could stain that flawless white. The sheer carnal craving he feels for the other man is starting to overrule his better judgement once more, and his heart mercilessly hammers his ribs as he realizes one rough push would send John toppling onto the expectant king sized bed. 

Bruce grabs John’s wrist with not quite enough force to break it, stopping him from finishing with the last few buttons. A ghoulishly glad grin goads Bruce in response; clearly, John is pleased to be effectively pressing his buttons. 

The intent had been to stop John from completely undressing… but as the moments skitter by the reason becomes slanted and skewed; it feels too good to grab him, to grip until he blooms bruises and hisses in sweetly savored pain. 

A startled gasp cuts short as John reels backwards, knocked off balance by the sudden shove to his chest. For half a moment the room seems to tip around him and suddenly he’s on his back, sprawled against the black egyptian cotton sheets. Bruce is on top of him before he has a chance to finish a breath. Their legs tangle and their mouths clash together; and it’s like the room breaks and falls to pieces around them, ceasing to exist. Nothing else matters; Bruce’s hesitations die like silence shattered by a thunderclap. His tongue lunges between John’s early parted lips and invades his mouth; the subtle smell of sweat lurks beneath the crisp scent of soap as they taste each other; their tongues clumsily stumble into a rhythm of long lewd licks, each slick limber muscle savoring stroking the other. 

Thinner longer hands bite impatiently at Bruce’s shirt in a thoughtless attempt to remove it, but first the tie must go. Feeling feral and impulsive, Bruce sinks his teeth into the other man’s tongue; drinking the blissful pained groan that pours into his mouth beats the sweetest champagne and is far more intoxicating. He feels John pant hotly against his mouth as he sits up, impatient hands roughly loosening his tie. After pulling the loop from around his neck, Bruce almost chucks the offending thing away, but…

It occurs to him there could be a better use for it. A faintly dark and analytical gaze scans the body splayed beneath him, and he realizes he could use the tie to bind John’s hands to the elegant black iron bars of the headboard, or... 

“Sit up,” the brunette billionaire's voice is rough and restless. With a feral feline curiosity the other man props himself up on angular elbows, and wears a hazy giddy grin as he watches Bruce lead the loop of the tie around his neck. 

“Oh, I didn’t realize this event was so formal,” John jests with a small chuckle, which lasts as long as it takes for Bruce to wrap the tie appropriately around his fist and pull very intently. Suddenly John can’t breathe, and his wild thorn colored eyes widen with sudden shock. His ashen hands grasp demandingly at Bruce’s locked fist, but the darker side of Bruce feels it and knows it’s all for show. John revels in each moment he’s cruely deprived of air; it’s betrayed by the hazy pleasure seeping into the strain of his expression. His lips part in a smothered silent groan as his brows knit upward in steadily growing distress. One hand abandons its ruse and jumps frantically into Bruce smeared charcoal tresses; John’s grip guides him forward until their foreheads bump together and gently rest just so. Bruce feels a powerful pulse below the pit of his gut as the other man begins to tremble against him. 

A gasp greedy for air lances John’s throat as he’s _finally_ allowed to breathe; all at once he’s severely dizzy and suddenly the comfortable firmness of the mattress comes slamming against his back. The madman’s possessive grip hauls Bruce down on top of him. Their mouths slam together and it’s an aggressive struggle of probing tongues and biting teeth as they fight for domination of the kiss. Moments drip by with the beads of their sweat. 

And when the urge becomes to demanding to resist, Bruce brutally jerks the length of his tie and completely cuts off the other man’s air once again; wasting not a moment his assailing tongue mercilessly reams John’s lips. A breathless silenced groan is smother by a rich gravelly growl. The dominating man feels the desperation for air grow to a burn in John’s lungs and he lets him char in that heat for a few lengthy moments as he leans back and cruelly admires the sweaty distress forming his features. 

Their gazes meet and they watch each other’s twisted enjoyments; savoring the pain, and savoring inflicting it. It’s impossible not to notice the near naked man’s pulse pounding approval with the heated heft of his dick resting heavy against Bruce’s thigh. The rigid turgid flesh twitches as suffocation looms on the peripherals of his consciousness. A reckless and curious glance downward shows Bruce the smears of slick shining precum clinging to his clothes; John’s hips twitch in badly held self restraint and Bruce can taste in the air that the other man is desperately aching to rut against him; to rub his throbbing cock against his thigh in a frenzy of friction. 

When the bind around his throat loosens enough for breath John sucks in another dizzying breath; a ragged cry voids the air of his lungs as blunt teeth cut into the slope of his neck and clamp in a vicious claiming bite. Thin arms wrapped in lean ropes of muscle jerk sharply backwards and grasp the classy iron gate-like headboard as Bruce’s mouth descends, leaving dark wet bruises scattered beneath the scrape of his lips. Shallow breaths seep through his clenched teeth as John feels the brutish grip in his hair haul his head to the side; his exposed throat is suddenly savaged with a swath of bruising biting kisses. Bruce feels the other man’s voice in his veins as John breathlessly groans his name and leans against the grip biting against his scalp.

They both understand that John’s pressing to know just how much Bruce will hurt him; it’s a question that only one of them wants answered. 

But Bruce can feel how bad he wants it-- _they_ want it, and it feels too fucking good to not give in. A stinging stare is shared between them before the dominating man releases his vice grip and reels back his hand; there’s not half a moment of respite before a dizzying burning slap sends John’s head snapping hard to the side. The sheer shiny shock lives a few long moments in his widened eyes; his dick twitches eagerly, nudging itself insistently against Bruce’s thigh. 

“You enjoyed that a little too much,” Bruce growls with glowing embers of approval, a small sharp smirk quirking the corner of his lip. 

“So did you,” feral delight attempts to sharpen his smile, but John’s far too feverishly aroused to properly concentrate on much else. His eyes flutter and squeeze shut, his hips jolting with a little more urgency; the stolen friction sets fire to his nerves. 

“Maybe,” Bruce deflects, averting his eyes for a few stray moments before banishing the shadows from his thoughts. Suddenly his teeth are back at John’s skin and his mouth is painting a river of wet bruises down his chest and towards his stomach. Bruce feels the other man’s breath grow erratic as he slides further down; heated hungering breaths ghost ashen sweat-damp skin. When teeth and tongue hotly lavish the descending line of his hip bone, John smothers a throaty moan with an growl-- frustration and impatience tapering to a brief gruff whimper of desperation. 

“Come _on_ ; stop _teasing_ me!” John’s voice veers unpredictably between angry impatience and sweet needy pleading, like two different reactions are running at once in his mind. It plays pleasantly on Bruce’s sadism to have him all but writhe with need underneath him; but there’s no reason not to give John exactly what he’s asked for. Pallid hips begin to buck immediately at the barest touch of Bruce fingers, but are bitten and pinned down by the man’s other hand. The next moment the tip of John’s dick is being cradled in the moist velvet of Bruce’s tongue; slow soft deliberate strokes paint warm slick saliva around and around the throbbing head of his cock and torment him with the deprivation of any other stimulation. Bare teasing testing motions as Bruce experiments; rubbing the aching dick wet with his tongue and sucking with his lips locked on the turgid steel-hard shaft. 

One of John’s hands jump back into Bruce’s hair and grip like he’s falling off of the world, while the other abandons its hard iron perch and instead steals a fistfull of sheets to strangle. His thighs hang lewdly apart and his hips arch in small juts of pleading, pushing his dick-head against Bruce’s parted lips. Somehow John’s managed to prop himself up on one elbow, so he can stare at the flushed flesh of his obsession’s tongue tracing and stroking his cock. So he can watch smouldering cerulean eyes devour him as Bruce slowly sheaths John’s aching dick in the hot moist cavern of his mouth. 

And John is so, _so_ close to bursting fervently all over his companion’s tongue; to pumping the other man’s mouth full and milking out every last drop of seed into his throat. John growls as the idea rattles around his brain and pulls Bruce’s hair in demand, but Bruce leans back and pops the aching dick out of his mouth and blows hot air against the skin now slick with drizzles of his own saliva. John hisses, gripping the sheets as his nails pierce the other man’s scalp; the superficial infliction wins him nothing; Bruce barely seems to notice, taking his time to wind John up with a staggering series of slow sloppy strokes of his tongue.

“ _Bruce_ , please!” his tone is in the unclaimed territory between raging demand and heedless shameless pleading. “Stop teasing! What the hell do you want from me?!”

“I want to hear you beg,” the words escape him before he can quell the jailbreak of his darker desires, but they have been spoken and he likes the way they sound. This time, Bruce gasps the tie he’d left like a leash on the other man’s neck and pulls, softly threatening strangulation as he murmurs in demand, “Beg me, John.” 

The emotions flow across John’s pale face in the space of a few impatient seconds; first he’s angry and his mouth makes it half way into a snarl, but the delicious sweet-hot tension winding around his bones reminds him just how badly he wants Bruce’s mouth wrapped around his dick again. A hissing breath that is almost a whine rushes through clenched teeth as foggy green eyes squeeze shut. Bruce watches the fat drops of sweat tremble down the other man’s brow as he staggers through a vicious internal struggle; somehow, the show is deeply satisfying into the marrow of his bones. 

When John opens his eyes once more they are mere slits, not quite glaring. His breath has gone shallow, his mouth dry from panting through his lips. A sound between a growl and a whine breaks past his teeth and finally, he manages to force out a few words.

“Bruce… don’t stop… please,” he says between shallow sips of air, half demanding and half pleading. John’s only reply is a faintly sadistic smirk, and the too soft scrape of fingertips along the shaft of his cock. A wordless frustrated groan gets caught in John’s throat and the sheer building pressure in his gut causes him to thrash his head back and forth against the sheets.

“ _Please_ ,” he attempts once more, a little more desperation breaking into his tone. “Don’t you dare stop-- I’m so, so close-- I want--”

Firm strong fingers coil tightly around John’s dick, stroking in long deliberate motions. Bruce is struck by how good it feels to wield the power of the other man’s pleasures over him; to make him suffer in a way that curls his toes and speeds his pulse; to watch John _enjoy_ it.

“You want…?” he drawls, rubbing his thumb firmly along the rim of the white mushroom cockhead in his grasp. John hisses sharply and Bruce feels the rock hard heated organ jump eagerly in his hand. He shifts a little, allowing the softest touch of his breath to wisp teasingly against John’s cock. This time, the man’s spine arches and he does nothing to bite back the growling moan that flows freely past his lips. 

“I want to _come_ ,” he says, snarling and slowly breaking down beneath the weight of his urges. “I want to come, I want you to suck me off until I pump your damn mouth full, I want to fuck your face until I can’t stand up--” and suddenly John is robbed of the ability to form words as the other man complies with no warning; suddenly Bruce’s lips are sealed around the hilt of John’s dick and his mouth his humid and searing-soft and so fucking perfect. 

“ _Yes_ , just like that, don’t stop, don’t you dare fucking stop--” a heedless moan breaks up John’s words as his hips begin to buck; Bruce doesn’t’ stop him this time, only focuses on watching John’s face as the other man drags him by the hair and spears his mouth with eager abandon. “Bruce, please, Bruce-- I-I’m getting so close--” another wordless cry rips out of his throat and Bruce feels the pleasurable smoulder that comes from making John completely fall apart. His cheeks hollow with the force of his suction and his tongue wriggles devilishly against the underside of John’s dick, which seems to increase the desperation in the sharp snapping of his hips. 

Little by little John’s voice crumbles into wordless cries-- desperate pleasure all but rips him apart as his blood sizzles in every vein on the way to his aching cylinder sex. He’s getting louder, and the cracks in his cries shoot bolts of pleasure straight to Bruce’s balls. A hard breath rushes past his nostrils as he steals a second to breath and banish the dizziness from his head. In the next moment John’s dick is lancing his lips and pressing the back of his throat in a broken rhythm, and Bruce can feel from the stretch of the skin on his tongue that John is teetering on the edge of blissful oblivion. 

A warning creak sounds on the very edge of Bruce’s perception. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t pull away, but his hazy eyes dart to the open doorway. He can’t see anyone, but he knows someone else is in the mansion. Before he can even begin to wonder who, the footsteps drift closer and he can hear a familiar voice tentatively calling his name. 

_Tiffany_.

Instantly Bruce wraps a fist around the forgotten tie around John’s neck and pulls. All at once he is silent, thin pale fingers jumping in shock to the binding around his throat. Bruce can feel the other man’s fluttering pulse through the vein throbbing along his dick against the flat of his tongue.

The footsteps are entirely too close for comfort, and there’s also a strange unidentified sound that’s almost like… wheels? 

But he’s not going to stop, not going to leave John like this; not taking him all the way to the edge without watching him fall. A forceful hand locks at the underside of John’s thigh and pushes up and over, effectively spreading his thighs further apart and pinning him in a more vulnerable position. Bruce can feel the strain in the other man’s chest as he tries to gasp but can’t, trapped and stampeding towards climax and unconsciousness all at once. Tongue and teeth work in tandem to drag John closer and closer to the brink of his bliss, and from the wild bucking of his hips, Bruce knows it will be any moment now. 

His cool blue eyes dart once more to the door and he fucking _sees_ her, at the end of the hall. Luckily, the young Foxx woman is not looking his way. He catches sight of her turning down another hall, looking faintly somber and lost as she pulls her small suitcase along and continues her search. 

Bruce will accomodate all necessary levels of ‘what the hell’ as soon as this is over. Centering his focus, the dominating man stiffles his own breath as he sinks forward and allows the tip of John’s dick into the humid skin-tight wrap of his throat.

And that’s all it takes. 

Suddenly John’s whole body convulses as his dick is spurting generously down Bruce’s throat. He almost chokes, but holds himself there with the same unwavering resolution that keeps him gripping the tie around John’s neck. It feels far too pleasurable to keep him there, writhing in climax and unable to breath; completely at Bruce’s mercy. The only sound above John’s forced silence is the whisper of his grip tearing the sheets.

The climax shreds through John for a few long moments. When he’s finally spent, Bruce pulls back, softly sliding his slightly swollen lips from the spent hyper sensitive dick.

Then he finally, finally allows John to breath. Green eyes go saucer-wide as he gasps, again and again, greedily sucking down the air he had been starved of. Despite the orgasm, Bruce can still see long lewd drops of come ooze from the other man’s softening sex. 

“Jesus… Bruce… you’re an animal,” it doesn’t take long at all for the lengthy grin to return home upon ashen lips; there is approval in John’s raw voice and he has to speak between long deep breaths. He doesn’t seem concerned with moving; simply laying splayed for the moment with eyes hanging just before shut and a stretching satisfied grin. “I mean, I already knew that,” he chuckles raspily, idly touching his throat beneath the loosened tie. “I _really_ hope that leaves a nice bruise…”

And before Bruce can even fathom of how to excuse himself, John speaks up again.

“You might wanna go check on Tiffany. Don’t think she’d be too happy being ignored while you suck me off,” deep self satified chuckles vibrate in his chest. “But come back quick, okay? I already miss you. Oh, and bring the takeout.” 

How the actual hell did he notice Tiffany amidst… all that? 

“...Right,” is about all the English Bruce can mange as he unsteadily stands. His blood is still hot and it’s difficult to think clearly through the humid fog of arousal still sweating over his thoughts. “I… I’ll be back,” he grumbles, hoping beyond hope that nothing else will go wrong today.

“I’ll be waiting,” John replies with a flirtatious grin, and blows a quick kiss. 

Bruce’s face still feels horribly hot as he exits the room and carefully closes the carved french doors behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this chapter! I really love when people enjoy my work, and kudos and comments always get me raring to write more!! So if you enjoyed the read, please let me know! 
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	4. Racking the Cuffs

Giggles of subtle malice and madness flutter like dusty winged moths across the stone walls of the Batcave. They clot into swarms that cloud up Bruce’s agitated thoughts, making him edgy and tense beneath the tall stale lights that peer down from the natural high ceiling.

“You really think this is funny, don’t you?” he finally snarls, cutting cobalt stare angled down at the man sitting splayed upon the floor. John’s knees are bent and parted comfortably, his weight resting against the pipework behind his back. Abruptly, his manic giggles cease and a look of perturbed offense crosses his angular face. He looks like Bruce just insulted his shoes. 

“Of course not,” he replies as though such a thing should be completely obvious. “I told you, I laugh when I’m nervous!” He smothers a few more snickers before straightening his back, squaring his posture as he stares up at the other man. John is completely at ease defending himself, even as the muscular man in the dark suit glowers down at him. “And besides that, this is serious. You just don’t steal someone’s dinner, Bruce! It’s so unbelievably _rude_ it just makes me want to ring her slender little throatl--” his attempt at some kind of dignified explanation wanes quickly into simmering sadism, and razored alarm shreds Bruce’s stomach.

No. He can’t hear this, he can’t let John do that. Not to Tiffany, not to anyone, ever again. A fool’s errand he can’t bring himself to abandon and the frustration of it deepens the snarl on his lips.

“ _John!_ ” Bruce barks in dominating demand; anything to derail that terrible thought. Anything to make John stop savoring the thought of murdering yet another person. 

“I was gonna say _a little bit_ ,” John scoffs, obviously unamused and put off by Bruce’s overly serious answer. “Jeez, give a guy a little trust, why don’t you? I remember your murder hang ups, buddy. I wasn’t gonna kill her. Just… hurt her, just a tiny bit. She crossed a line. She deserves to be punished!”

“She didn’t even touch your food,” in speaking the words, a dreadful though drapes it’s withered leather wings around his mind; John is behaving like this for such a small offence. How might he react knowing Tiffany has been moonlighting with Batman? The notion turns him stomach cold and Bruce turns away for half a moment, unable to look his friend in the face and imagine what violence the other man’s imagination may conjure-- may inflict upon the undeserving young lady. Bruce doesn’t doubt that the radical jealousy would spur John into something awful-- but what exactly can he do-- _is he going to do_ to stop it? Can he really keep this secret?

It just got a little easier, with Tiffany gone. 

“No, _worse_ ,” the paler man retorts with grave seriousness. “She touched your food. The food I ordered just for you! And she put sweet and sour sauce all over your rice, and I know how much you hate that--” in a less distressing moment, Bruce will likely return to this statement and wonder how John knew as much-- but now, post shit storm, that curiosity flies far below the radar. Bruce takes a deep breath, buckling down his bucking temper, because he knows the other man responds better to honey than vinegar. 

Usually.

“John,” the burnt out brunette begins steadily, “please listen to me. I don’t want you attacking people on my behalf.”

“... fine. I just thought… that it was romantic, or something? Pfft, stupid, John, stupid…” Gritty green eyes scrunch into frustrated slits as John berates himself, and Bruce has even less idea what to do with him. John is unpredictable no matter what mood he’s in, and that’s not a problem Bruce can solve.

No. It’s a problem he’s thus far refusing to solve. And he’s turning his gaze from exactly why that is. 

“... You’ve got quite the unique take on romance,” he finally mutters, low and flat but faintly warm. Jesus, the guy is like a badly trained dog. Maybe he does need a leash? The thought is sarcastic, but the amount of potential it suddenly suggests has Bruce reeling back from the notion like it bit him. It’s already too much how much he likes to hurt the other man (painting blood over bruises and soaking in his shredded cries) as much as he does; Bruce is hardly ready to start conceiving of such things as leashes and collars on that too tempting unblemished throat…

(Damn it, Waller.) 

“Hahaha,” John erupts in a burst of chuckles, his savage sage eyes home to a harsh glint. “Says the guy who handcuffed me to the wall,” he retorts, twisting his wrists behind himself to demonstrate the sound of little clinking chains. “I knew you were kinky buddy, but really? We haven't even decided on a safe word…” his smirk is mocking and daring and deranged, and Bruce doesn’t like all the vicious ways he wants to smother that sharpened smile. How is it John can be cuffed to the wall, yet project such effortless confidence? Like he’s invincible, untouchable.

Bruce knows enough to understand how dangerous that makes the other man. 

“... I was trying to subdue you. I won’t let you hurt Tiffany,” the growl returns to his voice like a black water tide, staining everything beneath it. “This isn’t a joke, you attacked her with a fork! You _stabbed_ her! You forced my hand.” 

“Yeah, but you also _liked_ it.,” John ignores the graver half of the statement, cutting straight for the juicy bits. “I could practically smell it on you. You wanna waste our time with a useless denial now? You might convince yourself, but you won’t convince me,” and once again he degrades into devious giggles, keeping eerie unbroken eye contact with his bestest friend in the world. 

God, it’s like he’s looking into the back of his skull, shining a garish green light with his gaze on all the darkest thoughts Bruce would rather hide. He tries to scrape together something to say, and while he wants to deny it, all the words that cross his mind feel fake and flimsy; worthless denials indeed. So Bruce stalks up to the other man until he’s draped in his shadow; John’s grin stands out from the dark like that of a ghoulish cheshire cat. 

“I hope you’re comfortable, because that’s where you’re staying until Tiffany’s cab arrives,” Bruce grumbles, soft threat whispering in his tone like a silent deadly undercurrent. “Maybe longer. I haven't decided what I’m going to do with you yet,” a deep sigh deflates him slightly, revealing a glimpse of fatigue and a hint of loss. “You realize I can’t let you go around stabbing people, don’t you?”

“I can think of something you can do with me,” again the paler man cuts away what he wishes to ignore like fat from a prime cut of meat. “A few things, in fact,” the way John’s tongue paints his pale top lip sends entirely too much hot blood surging south between Bruce’s legs, awakening a small but sharp little pulse of arousal. He silently grits his teeth and tries to resist the heavy gravity that tries so hard to drag him down into the mud and dirt of baser urges. He can’t let John distract him like this-- he can’t let John distract him with _sex_ because that is a dangerous power for the occasionally adorable little psycho to wield over him. 

“That feels more like a reward than a punishment,” Bruce grumbles flatly, making zero effort to conceal the starving lack of amusement in his tone. The ghoulishly grinning man is twisting the situation into a game, and it’s like Bruce can practically feel the floor and walls shifting around him.

Redefining everything.

“Oh, do you want to _punish_ me, Brucie? I’m not in much of a position to stop you, you know,” John barely manages to bite back his torrential ghastly giggles as he makes the suggestion through an unnaturally wide grin. The smug anticipation in his voice floods Bruce’s instincts and something primal inside of him rattles the bars of his self control, threatening a violent jailbreak. Everything dark that Bruce has ever tried so smother out seems to come out play under the crescent moon of John’s halloween grin. Every twisted figment and bat winged black fantasy. Every starving sadism. Every scar that begs a place on that too pale skin. 

“Don’t _push_ it John. You’re not subtle, I can tell what you’re trying to do,” the charred brunette hisses between clenched teeth, and the edge on which he hangs has John almost squirming on the floor in restless anticipation. He can feel the wave cresting; they can feel the fever spiking. 

“Is it working?” he dares with a grin of daggers. “Come on, you can do anything want to me, and I’ll still beg you for worse,” the faint scraps of pleading peppered in the other man’s tone shifts everything out of focus and switches the floor with the ceiling. Bruce swallows the knot in his parched throat. John wants it so badly, and letting go just a _little_ would feel so, so damn satisfying… 

Maybe it would blot out the memory of Tiffany’s face soured in anger and disappointment as she stormed out of the dining room, clutching her bleeding hand to her chest while she dragged her rattling suitcase behind her. 

“Come on Brucie, _hurt me_ , I know you want to. Stop holding back,” John goads, growls, almost groans. “Hit me. I _want_ you to hit me!” he barks, yanking violently at the cuffs and leaning towards Bruce as much as the meager slack will allow. “You wanna hear me beg, or should I talk more about hurting your pretty little bird--” 

Finally something snaps and Bruce finds himself down on one knee, powerful hand clamped unforgivingly around John’s ghostly slender throat. He’s suddenly choked quiet and one eye squeezes shut from the immediate strain. It’s a very convincing lie of helplessness, and Bruce feels it spin his mind like a rattling rolling roulette. He’s dizzy and hot beneath his skin, tingling and sinking into a seething thoughtless fog. 

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” he growls into the air that he deprives his impromptu temporary prisoner; his crackled dirty sapphire eyes shred into stinging shards. A look that could cut glass if not bloody diamonds. It feels way too good to silence him; to squeeze and feel the air try in vain to lance John’s throat with each crushed, growingly greedy attempt at breath. As the moments ride by on galloping heartbeats, Bruce gets suddenly severely drunk on watching John’s eyes roll and flutter. Tiny humid beads of sweat hang on his face as startling green eyebrows knit up in an expression of growing distress. 

And when those ashen lips stretch around a smothered cry of swelling frustration, Bruce doesn’t even think; he leans forward and slides his tongue inside so he can taste the pain on which John chokes as he punches him quick and brutal in the ribcage. An instinctive gasp further opens that surprisingly soft and simmering mouth, and Bruce takes full advantage without a trace of hesitation; his tongue pushes and probes deeper yet, suddenly wrapped up in pleasurable vibrations as John groans heedlessly into the aggressive kiss. Their mouths clash and melt together, their lips sealed around twining tongues. 

Ah, fuck it. Bruce sits back and spends a few more moments in a disorienting soaring high as he watches John so obviously get off on being choked. He watches his own saliva drip down John’s kiss-swollen mouth; he watches as everything in the other man’s expression begs him for more punishment. 

God, he’s so fucked up. 

They both are, aren't they. 

Maybe John wants to be hurt almost as badly as Bruce aches to hurt him. 

Buttons scatter wildly across the floor as Bruce tears open the other man’s shirt like gaudy tissue paper. He lets John sip a few more shallow breaths before he’s choking him again and painting bruising bites down the sharp line of his defined collarbone. Savoring, greedy groans clog up John’s crushed throat and go nowhere, mercilessly muffled. Bruce can feel his pulse race underneath his fingertips, and moves by some persuasive madness to sit over John’s splayed knees. Before the brunette billionaire blinks he’s straddling John’s hips, crushing him to the pipework and plundering his mouth with devouring bestail kisses once again. It doesn’t take long for the heat to climb; it builds up quick beneath their clothing as they melt into a pleasant tangle. Neat clean fingernails grind down John’s chest and leave thin streaks of raw red; when a nipple is scraped John’s spine arches in that absolutely fucking perfect way, like a bow drawn close to snapping. 

The kiss grows lazy, deep and deliberate; Bruce draws the other wet limber muscle past his own teeth and sucks experimentally; the way John shudders cuts into his head like a bump of cocaine. Moments trickle by with their mouths tangled as such, until a stray streak of sadism has Bruce suddenly clamp his teeth. 

John’s dick twitches heavily against the confinement of his pinstripe pants as the taste of blood blooms across his tongue. He growls and groans and whines, tugging and twisting in a useless attempt to free his hands. He’s going to be wearing bright nasty bruises on his wrists if he keeps this up, and somehow that pleases Bruce deep in the pit of his gut. _Yes_ , John looks so fucking good covered in bruises… He looks so good with his cock starved for friction and practically busting out of his pants.

He looks so good _helpless_ ; a beautiful psychedelic illusion. 

John coughs and gasps as his throat is released, and he rides tides of dizziness as his starved lungs gorge on the air. Vaguely he is aware of Bruce standing, shifting, and removing his expensive black leather belt. The edges of everything are bright and blurry as a jackolantern's grin carves across John’s mouth. Oh, he thinks this is going to be _fun_ does he? In this crazy raw reality, maybe it will be. Maybe the end of this path leads to the pair of them banging in a shared Arkham cell too few years down the line. Right now Bruce can’t hold it together enough to give one single fuck. 

Before John inevitably makes some smart-ass remark about their shared sadistic streak, Bruce loops his belt behind the slim beam of pipework and around John’s throat, too; he pulls until the buckle bites into the other man’s neck and locks the belt thusly, allowing John to breath very little with a great amount of struggle. The split second of shock that flashes through those toxic green eyes is like gasoline on an ambitious little smoulder. 

Suddenly Bruce has his hefty dick by the hilt, guiding it between the splayed zipper of his pants. He’s past halfway hard, his pulse buzzing beneath his swelling sex as he slaps it against John’s sweat-damp cheek. The burning bliss rockets up his nerves and darkens the world around everything but this room, this moment in time, and the stunned look on John’s face. His eyes go lidded and misty when Bruce repeats the action and rubs against his face, skating the head of his dick across parted panting lips. Incinerating pleasure shuts his eyes as Bruce bites his bottom lip, swallowing a growl as he strokes himself. 

He burns lengthy minutes rubbing and slapping his dick against the other man’s face. When Bruce is too ferally possessed to stop himself, a devious impulse has him steal his cell phone from his pocket and snap a delicious photo. The restrained man seems to enjoy that quite a bit, evident by the restless needy way he begins to squirm. The spark finds the powder keg as Bruce suddenly spears his cock past those kiss-swollen lips and steals another shot--

\--only he hits the recording button instead, but rolls with it regardless. His free hand sinks into dewy grass locks and pulls, through the belt keeps John from moving his head much at all. 

“Come on John,” Bruce hears himself growl as he grips the other man’s hair and stuffs his throat with stone hard cock, “let me hear how much you’re enjoying yourself.”

The full throated moans that begin to pour around his dick damn near knock him down; John’s voice begs and savors as his tongue rubs eagerly against the flesh crammed into his mouth. The sounds that vibrate down his dick pool in his gut as Bruce’s hand shakes, rattling the recorded image for a moment. 

“ _Fuck_ , yes,” he gasps dizzily, feeling a surge rush through his mind like a million bats bursting into dusk. “You love choking on my dick, don’t you?” his voice is dark gritty gravel; Bruce has no time to reflect on his own deepening depravity because John is already eagerly agreeing;

“Mm-Hm! Mm-Hm! Mm-Hm!” is all he can articulate, but his voice is ragged and shamelessly eager as he hollows his cheeks by the force of his greedy suction. John’s expression begs him for everything and more. One terrible moment of cold sobriety takes him as Bruce realizes exactly what he’s doing, and he has no idea how he came this far. He feels the creeping tendrils drawing him towards obsession; he could get lost in this, he _is_ lost in this. He could erase so much with the blissful burn of John’s mouth around his dick. Regret, rage, shame… The number of things that matter in his world are rapidly dwindle as the seconds drag him closer and closer to bursting inside John’s mouth. 

And John looks blazed and blitzed out on the bliss, glassy green eyes with blown wide pupils staring up at Bruce in a worshipful haze. Saliva slick, swollen lips drag avidly up and down Bruce’s beastial cock, and the wriggling of that silver tongue shoves him ruthlessly over the brink. For half a mad moment he’s consumed by the idea of painting John’s face again with the mess he so earnestly caused. But he’s seen that already, and some smouldering sadism inside of him wants something else. 

His firm vice grip catches and locks at the back of John’s neck; one savage thrust and Bruce’s dick is sheathed once more in the disorientating delight of the other man’s throat. A sound not unlike a roar distorts and drags through the winding caverns as Bruce bucks through his feverish climax. His mind spins on the fact that he’s forcing John to take everything-- jet after jet of copious cum pumped down his throat. He can’t speak or move or even _breathe_ until Bruce is done spilling inside of him and somehow that just makes everything burn a little sweeter and brighter. His recording focuses on the tight perfect seal John’s lips lock around the hilt of his dick. 

He doesn’t let go, not until his rutting has gone deep and lazy and he can feel John flirting the edge of unconsciousness. The cold air crashes against his cock as Bruce steps back and releases his grasp; a few quick jerks unlatch the belt buckle that bound John's throat, allowing him to breathe properly and revealing a pallet of pretty bruises. John gasps desperately for far too many breaths. Bruce near buckles at the knees as he struggles to keep standing. Thankfully a close by counter catches his unsteady sway and he allows his weight to rest against it. His head is still spinning like a broken carousel, distorting more and more with each speeding loop. The crashing climax did nothing at all to cease the ride.

John looks too good tied up, brutalized, bulging between his legs and panting through fucked-swollen lips. His motions are druken and sluggish post climax as Bruce experimentally slides out a foot and presses the pulsing swell between John’s thighs. Instantly he hisses and jerks against the cuffs, swinging his half-wild gaze to his sadistic best buddy. A split second passes before John is shallowly rolling his hips, working himself into steadily louder and more wanton groans. 

Bruce’s hands quake subtly, one grasping the edge of the counter while the other still mans the shamelessly recording phone. It’s all he can do to keep himself standing, but the swampy reeling bliss of watching the other man rut against his shoe makes even that a challenge. With an unsteady hand Bruce lures the focus of the recording to the bulge John so eagerly scrapes against his foot, and then to the expression of contorted agonized euphoria upon the paler man’s face. 

“ _Jesus_ John…” he attempts to lick the dryness from his own mouth, “I’d bet you could cum just like that, couldn’t you?” His sadism is satisfied as the cuffed man can only nod; apparently his throat is yet to raw for speech. Glowing smoulders mutter in the pit of Bruce’s gut. 

“Let’s see it,” he growls huskily, “get yourself off; I want to watch you,” Bruce has so little opportunity to doubt this blooming dominance because John eagerly spreads his thighs for a more pleasing view as hips jut wildly for the barest bit of friction. 

It doesn’t take him long. John finds his voice fine when his climax begins to tear into him. His head tips back and his ragged cries bounce off the tangled stalactites. Every moment is captured in crystal clear high definition; even the sizable stain that soaks and swells across the crotch of those pinstripe slacks. For a stretch of quiet minutes, they only pant in failing attempts to catch their breath. 

“Well,” John is the first to break the silence, “that was fun!” he reports with jubilation, “are you still mad at me, or are you gonna uncuff me now? My nose has been itching for the past forty three minutes.” 

Now what, Brucie boy? Fucking John’s face didn’t solve a single thing-- save for that it kept them both occupied until Tiffany had left, presumably. But it felt good, and it felt addictive, and Bruce isn’t sure how he feels about how badly he still wants more. 

This. Carnal Entanglement. Can only make things more complicated. It has to stop. But why are those words so flimsy and faded? 

“Uh, hello? Earth calling Bruce? Re: itchy nose situation?”

Well… John could probably get out of those cuffs himself, if left alone long enough. Bruce doesn’t doubt for a moment his heedless buddy would break his own thumbs to shuck the cuffs that kept him trapped. With a small sigh of resignation Bruce shifts his weight onto his own feet properly, and treads the shallow space between them. He kneels once more and leans down, reaching behind John to the cuffs around his wrists.

The Wayne aire’s fingerprints unlock the mechanism. 

Yet another case of Bruce deciding to let his unpredictable fanboy off the leash and into the unsuspecting world. Coldly, part of him knows that everyone would be safer if John was trapped in a cell in the Batcave. Hell, it would be a much better deal than Arkham, at least. But Bruce doesn’t examine the idea too closely because he already knows he could never do it. His friends always find his soft spots, his weak spots.

Harvey.

Vicki. 

Selena.

Tiffany.

And now John. 

If anyone is actually surprised, maybe they should have been paying closer attention.

“I don’t know about you buddy but I’m starving. How do you feel about pineapple on pizza? Just kidding, I already know you love it. How do you feel about sausage pineapple and provolone? I know it sounds weird but trust me. I think I know what you like~” 

God, maybe they will end up in an Arkham cell together. The notion strikes him like a beating to the back of the head, and suddenly Bruce is smouldering over all the parts of himself he hates, and how John always seems to find and grow them. 

He can’t believe he allowed all this to happen.

Bruce feels trapped in his skin and in his clothes and in his house. He feels like he’s chained to something irrevocably and inescapably, something that would follow him through every hell no matter the catastrophic cost. 

And so, consumed in his sudden gnawing gloom, Bruce slips off through some concealed passage while John is chattering; Bruce vanishes like a phantom into a spooky rigged theater. 

“... so the duck says, you got any grapes?” John erupts into giggles at the punchline of his own joke and glances back to see Bruce’s reaction. Only, there is no Bruce. Not a trace, even.

“Bruce? Brucie? BRUUUCE,” he singular cave occupant calls out, finishing half way dejected with an uncertainty apologetic “we didn’t have to get pizza…” 

\---

The taxi never came. Maybe they thought it was a prank; who at the Wayne Manor would need something as lowbrow as a _taxi_? The Wayne aire is very well known for the company of his trusty Butler after all, whom the press has thus far deemed ‘on vacation’. Everyone knows Wayne hires drivers for the girls he brings home (or they know those rumors, at least).

Well, not for Tiffany Fox. She got a little impatient after the first thirty minutes, realizing both that the cab was not coming, and that Bruce was not returning. Probably busying tying up and spanking his new boyfriend. 

It made her sick; how the hell could Bruce do that? But she didn’t want to hear his answer, not really. That’s why she left. Nothing he could say would be a good enough reason to let that lunatic out into Gotham. 

The young technical genius fumes silently and keeps a quick stride. Soon enough, she’s made it off Wayne property and onto the lengthy lonely roads that takes one to it. The faint sound of a purring engine bothers the edge of her consciousness as she stomps down the gravel roadside; the sound grow closer and closer.

And then, the last person in the world Tiffany ever would have expected pulls up beside her.

“You’re looking lost, little bird. Need a lift?”

On any other day? Hell no. After the bullshit she just endured?

“... sure. Take me wherever you’re going, I don’t even care.”

“Geez, seems like you had a rough day. Oh hey, what happened to your hand?”

“Don’t ask, let’s just get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to add another scene onto this, to make it the same length as the others, but it really felt like it was just done, so there you have it!
> 
> I hope some of you lovely batjokes fans out there enjoyed this! 
> 
> As always, I love kudos, and I ADORE thoughtful comments! They are a huge part of what inspires me overcome my anxiety and self criticism to keep writing!~ 
> 
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	5. Stoking The Embers

The Wayne property has miles and miles of footpaths through its picturesque scenery; flattened hard earth viens weaving through the trees and the rocks far beyond the well kept gardens which are starting to grow wild. 

For hours, Bruce follows them with reckless random impulse. He isn’t going anywhere, he’s only trying to salvage some meaningful focus through the burn of physical exertion. The grounds flow in a blur around him as he pushes himself further and further, refusing to buckle to the lurking ache in his muscles.

He knows this is pointless and stupid. He can’t outrun his own prickly self disgust. Maybe if he just runs until he passes out, he won’t have to think about it for a while. 

This can’t be the path he walks. He knows damn well how dangerous John was before he had _this_ kind of sway, and he’s too pessimistic to try and imagine things getting better. Finally, he stops near the girthy support of an ancient tree. Leaning against it he breathes hard through the taste of metal at the back of his throat.

Now he’s broody _and_ tired.

He can’t just… avoid John forever. But in that moment Bruce had needed to get away from him so badly that he didn’t hesitate for a moment about leaving the clinically curious fellow alone in the Batcave. It’s either unwise trust, or the mere force of his self resentment. Maybe a little of both. 

The cold wind chills the sweat on his face as his ragged breath begins to slow. Sense returns in small shameful increments. His hand slides over his stormy eyes. He has to stop this, somehow. He can’t let John have a Get Out of Jail Free card every time he wraps his white lips around Bruce’s dick and swallows him into the sweltering suffocating sleeve of his throat.

Jesus, he might burn the whole city down. Figuratively, _probably_. But avoiding him isn’t going to make it any better. Bruce clenches his jaw as he steels himself, sinking slowly into stoney cold determination. His fists clench and unclench rhythmically as he walks with steady determination back to the front of the manor. 

He’s going to tell John that he will _not_ be manipulated like that. No warnings, zero tolerance. Or, he could leave. The thought had barely solidified when Bruce spots the front door suspiciously ajar. Well that was careless of someone. He feels the nagging impulse to quicken his step, but stubbornly resists it. In all likelihood, John had just neglected to shut it as he chased whatever impulse out the door.

And then he sees the note taped neatly to the frosted glass pane. Not crayon on crinkled paper, with doodles of eerie grins. The card is clean and off-white, blank on the front and inscribed very sparsely inside. The penmanship is elegant but quick and cutting.

_’You’re Welcome_

_A.W’_

A single beat passes while his sharp mind carries him to the cruel conclusion. 

“John?” he calls, almost shouts as he strides through the door and into the entrance hall; his ears strain for sound but only sieve out concerning silence. Bruce calls a second time, and a third. After a brief fruitless search he absconds to The Batcave, wondering if perhaps John never left (but knowing already that things never turn out so easy). 

His gut is seldom wrong, and today is no different. Only the distant chatter of bats and the husky whisper of rushing water keep the silence at bay. It’s a unique white noise that is often a comfort to him, though today it may as well be wailing sirens. 

Just to be sure, Bruce checks the cameras from The Batcomputer. The expansive flat screen shows every room is empty, currently. With a beaten brick frown Bruce leans forward, typing a few commands into the console’s keyboard. The security footage begins to run backwards, displaying several rooms at once in a grid pattern. 

Mere minutes before Bruce’s return to the front of the manor, he spots Amanda Waller pompously pinning that note to his door. He could keep watching, keep rewinding to see the whole story. He _should_. But he knows how ruthless she is and he can’t imagine she’ll have any fondness for him, considering their checkered past. People get so agitated about the odd murder attempt here and there. He knows he’ll come back and review the footage later-- but for the moment, Bruce takes out his phone with the intention of contacting Ms. Waller.

Only as the screen lights up does he come to notice the odd little icon cuddled among his famillair applications. An app he knows he didn’t install. The icon is red with a little black lightning strike and when he opens it up (Batcave firewalls being sufficient for this impulse) it declares itself ‘Clown Control’ with the initial loading screen. To some extent, it looks like the shock collar control application that Amanda had had installed on her various devices. But this is far more advanced, with curious additional functions listed down the side. It’s hardly the time to get lost fiddling on his phone but Bruce sees a tab labeled ‘TRACKER’ and his gut tells him to click it. 

Sure enough, a map of Gotham pops up on screen, and after a moment, shows a blinking red light at The Stacked Deck. 

Well, at least he knows where he’s going. His low key urgency allows his muscles to forget the burn of his reckless running as he swiftly crosses the cave. Within moments the engine of his custom candy apple car roars and everything outside the windows is quickly reduced to a smeared motion blur. Bruce’s fingers clench impatiently upon the steering wheel, his foot steadily pressing the gas pedal further and further towards the floor. 

Great, what kind of fresh hell was he walking into this time? Feeling edgy and irate Bruce barks at the automated controls to call Waller as he tears down the streets towards the shabby little bar. 

“Mr. Wayne, somehow I expected you to call sooner,” the always aloof woman sounds especially unimpressed-- and beneath that, just a little extra growly. It raises Bruce’s hackles and his knuckles go pale on the steering wheel. 

“What the hell did you do, Waller?” he snaps, in no mood for her pompous posturing. 

“I muzzled your dog, since you’re so irrationally fond of him. You can thank me for not simply putting him down, even after he put two of my people in critical care.” 

“You came into my home, attacked my--” his mind stutters for the appropriate label, but he quickly abandons the struggle in the face of his rising temper. “You’ve crossed a line, you have to know that.” A humourless, mean crackle of laughter erupts from the surly stormy woman, and it’s clear that the last thing she feels is threatened.

“That’s rich coming from you, Bruce. Really,” the mocking amusement in her voice lingers for a moment longer before her tone becomes brutally business-like. “You’re calling for an explanation, right? I’ll give you the short version. Your clown’s been collared; but not like Bane, or Harley. This is more sophisticated technology. You should check out the app on your phone, there are a few different options I’m sure you’ll find use of.” 

Oh, and speaking of that;

“How the hell did you--”

“The other day, in your office. Persuading one of your employees to lend me their password and ID made it easy to get into your system. After that all I needed was the wi-fi connection to transfer the file wirelessly to your device. It only works in close proximity, but by some stroke of luck you stayed at your desk the whole time I was speaking to you, stationary. I wonder just how that came about,” her sarcasm shows her absolute understanding of what had happened that grey dreary morning in his office, or at least, that is how it seems to Bruce. 

“Am I supposed to congratulate you?” he coldly remarks with the antithesis of amusement. “You have to know how this ends, Waller. I’m bringing John to you, and you’re going to take the damn thing off of him. He’s not an animal--”

“An animal is _exactly_ what he is, don’t kid yourself. He stabbed two people today!”

“People that were attacking him,” Bruce shoots back with edgy respite and perhaps a little urgency. “And he didn’t kill them.” 

For one startlingly terrifying moment Bruce waits through the weighted silence, willing Waller not to correct him. 

“That doesn’t matter,” she grumbles with embers as opposed to flames. “And don’t bother bringing your psycho sidekick here. You think I wanted you hounding me every goddamn minute? I can’t take the collar off of him. Only you can do that.”

Bruce’s logic struggles to follow. It _can’t_ be just that easy. It never is with Amanda Waller. Suspicion stains his wary tone as he continues;

“Then why go through all this struggle if I can just--”

“I said you _could_ , but I didn’t say how, did I? Guess you didn’t bother checking the instructions.” The smug mocking in her tone is so blatant it threatens to throw oil on the embers of his temper. He is ruthless in self restraint, ever vigilant and ready to buckle it down.

He has to be. 

When he speaks it’s only cold contempt that thinly permeates his arctic growl.

“Tell me how to do it.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you exactly what you want to know,” already The Agency’s Director sounds far too pleased with herself. “But I promise you, you aren't going to like it.” 

And despite her penchant for clever lies, Bruce absolutely believes her. 

\--- 

The door to the bar creaks sheepishly as Bruce enters The Stacked Deck. The light scent of smoke and booze floats on the air and the sounds of grumbling chatter and clinking glasses create a semicomfortable white noise. Keenly observant eyes pick out his target in a moment, though that hardly requires skill; even a blind man could probably hear the obnoxious purple of his shirt. 

John is sulking at the bar, and even from where the charcoal haired gentleman is standing, he can see that his unlikely buddy has been in one hell of a fight. The crowd tonight is sparse and Bruce is able to cross the space with ease, until Willy suddenly manifests to block his way.

“You got a lot’a nerve showing your ugly face here after what you did to the boss!” Willy sneers with the heavy hatred of the simple minded, and all Bruce can think of is how much he doesn’t want to deal with him right now. He doesn’t particularly feel like buying him another round of ‘medicine’, either. Least of all does he want to contemplate the implications of John’s ( _Joker’s_ ) previous crew still apparently placing him in an authoritative role.

The potential conflict gets nipped in the bud as a paper pale hand waves Willy aside.

“Sit down Willy, I already told you that this isn’t Bruce’s fault.” The slender ringleader snarls lowly, not bothering to look up from the bar. His elbows rest on the worn surface and his forehead is pressed against his tangled hands. “This is _Waller’s_ stupid game.” In that single utterance of her name, Bruce can hear all the corrosive resentment John feels about not killing the brash bitch when he had the chance. 

“Oh, _sure_ ” the scowling unshaven man fails to release Bruce from his hateful and scrutinizing stare. “You _business_ types, always trading favors. What’d you haffta do to get Waller in your pocket, huh?” 

“I didn’t have anything to do with this, now _move_ before I _move you_ ,” a menace and malice that almost never lives without his mask creeps like a dusk shadow into his voice. For a split second the booze-stinking man looks shocked and his eyes jump back to John, as though seeking some kind of life line. The ruffled scuffed up man at the bar makes no effort to even look up from his empty shot glass. 

Without knowing what to do, Willy flounders and blusters under his breath before hastily stepping aside. Bruce cuts past him carelessly and slides onto the stool beside John’s. Looking closely now, he can see the various bruises and wounds that accompany a down right dirty fight. His clothes are wrinkled and dirt dusted, spattered with a few darkening bloodstains, and even ripped here and there.

The cerulean eyed sir finds himself suddenly startled under the scalpel sharp gaze of his formerly sulking companion. It is as though in that moment John is choosing for himself whether to believe Willy’s wild ranting. Bruce holds that coldly calculating gaze with stoney determination; he has nothing to hide. 

Another critically tense moment defuses as John’s shoulder sink, the sadness rolls back onto his face and his gaze slams back towards his empty glass. 

“Hi Bruce,” he mutters dejectedly. 

“John,”he speaks steadily and carefully, knowing that in a state like this John is far too easily provoked “are you alright?”

In one tiny moment John’s morose mood shatters and rage contorts his expression. His eerie speed drives him at full throttle as he snatches his empty shotglass and whips it at the back of the bar. 

(The stern unflinching bartender only steps aside with a mild huff, continuing to clean her hefty glass mug.) 

“I’m just so _angry_ I let those Agency batards get the drop on me! In _our_ house! How dare they just waltz in and attack me!”

It is with acute clarity that Bruce realizes this is spinning out of control far too quickly. When exactly did it become _thier_ house? Is that something that happened so quick? He smells smoke and sees the blaze behind John’s toxic eyes; he knows those consuming fires all too well. 

“I could have killed them, Bruce. Every last one of them,”he growls with astonished sadism. “And I would have _liked_ it.”

“But you didn’t,” hands composed of both skill and strength settle firmly upon each of John’s sharp tense shoulders. Bruce isn’t sure if he’s trying to anchor his friend, or himself. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

“But I wanted to! I almost, _almost_ did! I got _so close_ but then I remembered your stupid murder hang ups and I stopped. I stopped, and everything went black. The only reason they got me was your stupid code in the back of my head! I should have just gutted those Agency grunts! ”

Bruce struggles with an odd concoction of emotions; relief and pride sit starkly against rage and pity, and somewhere far beneath hisses a waking sense of possession.

“I’m proud of you,” the dark haired man states firmly, uncertain how to place into simple words the rest of the emotions warring inside his head. He’d rather encourage John’s restraint than criticize his darkness; it makes the burnt brunette feel uncomfortably hypocritical.  
“I’m… I won’t let them do that to you again.”

The defeated deviant scoffs without care, slanting his stinging gaze at the floor. 

“They don’t think I’m a threat now that they’ve given _you_ the leash,” it is with these slightly venemous words of resentment that Bruce finally allows himself to look properly at the collar locked around John’s neck. Shrewd calculations filter through the detective’s finely tuned mind; he takes care in deciding exactly how to proceed explaining. 

“I’ve already contacted Waller. She told me how to take the collar off.”

‘The collar’, the words feel especially strange across his tongue, like a beguiling foreign flavor that gently insights curiosity. Bruce is not unaware of that blistering glare from the sidelines; Willy is absolutely fuming, looking like a little dog working itself up into a big bark. Surely this affirms his theory of Bruce’s comradery with The Agency’s Director, but Bruce intends to tell John the truth no matter what impressions it may leave on his former (?) clown crew. 

“Did she now?” John’s own voice is not without suspicion, but it isn’t pointed sharply at Bruce’s jugular. 

“She did,” he found himself speaking gruffly off of residual frustration. “Waller knew I wouldn’t stop hounding her if she was the only one that knew how to remove it. She said the unlock command is built into the control application, which she so kindly, and without permission, installed on my phone.”

Angular shoulders shift as the paler gentleman sits back, and unveils the clinical calculation behind his gaze. He’s too pessimistic to believe it could be that easy, not not pessimistic enough to believe Bruce and Waller are in coohoots. 

“That sounds a little too easy,” the battered and bruised man grumbles, to which Bruce replies with a grim nod of exasperated agreement. Gracefully he removes his phone from his pocket and slides it across the counter to his companion, allowing him to take a look. John’s fingers are cool and clammy as they touch the other man’s for a brief moment before he fetches the phone. 

“The release command is locked,” Bruce continues, “at least, for now. There’s a counter at the bottom, which apparently tracks each ‘legitimate’ use. I used the locator to find you, which apparently qualifies as one.”

The stoney Wayne aire watches the wheels and cogs turn and churn inside John’s head as he devours and dissects the presented information. Waller was aloof and non-committal about exactly what qualifies as a ‘legitimate’ use, but apparently the tec somehow determines that as well. 

“She failed to mention the number of uses that release the unlock command,” Bruce adds in a gravelly growl. Waller had claimed she didn’t want to make things too easy on The World’s Greatest Detective. 

John erupts into a short roar of frustration, slamming his fist onto the counter and snarling “Can’t we just--”

But suddenly those manic, maniac green eyes of his go wide and Bruce catches him glance around in sudden sheepishness. John immediately shrinks his posture and leans in quite close to his befuddled buddy, speaking next in a hasty whisper. 

“Isn’t there something that could… you know, potentially…? Help? At _home_? In…” a lower whisper still, “in the subterranean… _area_? With the airborne mammals…?” 

When it finally clicks what the other man is trying to covertly say, Bruce has to work very hard to keep the firmly fond grin off his faintly grizzled face. He sits up straight when he realizes he had been subconsciously leaning in towards John, as though catching his secretive stature like a cold. 

“Would you like to continue this discussion in private?” Bruce’s tone is a mismatched potluck of conflicting things. In part he’s grim because he has no good news to impart upon his companion. In part, he’s tired and edgy from his discussion with Waller and his uncertainty of how to safely dismantle her little toy. In part, he’s wary but warm and glad to have his vanished friend back within arm’s reach. Then, as if to add a little extra incentive he adds “the car is right outside, we’ll pick up coffee on the way back to the manor.” 

The green haired man stares with such shrewdness that Bruce can’t decide if he’s being mocked or not. Half a moment later and John is bouncing back to his feet, as if he had not just taken a beating from no less than four people.

“ _Frappuccino_ , Bruce. With extra whipped cream. Don’t tell me you can’t remember my order by now? I’ve had your coffee memorized since…”

The length of the trailing silence is mildly alarming.

“Since _when_?” Bruce prods with pronounced displeasure propped up by teasing. He has no illusions about the depth of John’s manically loyal obsession. 

“Since, ah…” his nervous giggles trail too long and too loud, until he abruptly catches himself and steers around his companion towards the entrance. 

“Shotgun!” John calls to… no one Bruce can fathom, as he speeds out the door. 

The charismatic businessman steals a moment to straighten his tie, pretending not to notice Willy’s glare of utter contempt, but taking brief petty pleasure from it regardless. With that he swiftly leaves, following his unlikely companion through the yet unsettled doorway. 

\---

“So… this is it?” after a hail of footsteps a suitcase is deposited unceremoniously on the cluttered floor. 

“Is there a problem?” the response is effortlessly elegant, aloof and yet curious. 

“No, no problem. I just thought it’d be…. Bigger.” A warm, faintly feral laugh emits from the apartment's owner. 

“That would have been hilarious if I was a man. Oh well, wasted.” The speaker is sultry by nature, composed with subtle animal magnitude. The drunkenly tipped coat rack struggles to support two helmets and two coats, working at twice its normal capacity. 

“Bigger _and_ nicer-- are those pizza bite wrappers?” a little closer to curious than indignant. 

“I have very distinguished tastes. Don’t tell me you’re squeamish over a tiny bit of mess.” The apartment is peppered with clutter composed of unfolded laundry, stray knick knacks and picked-clean take out containers.

“Actually I was just hoping there are more pizza bites.” Subtle, silky, surprised laughter sounds in response. 

“You’re in luck, little bird. I’ll fire up my state of the art toaster oven.”

She wrinkles her nose in a small petulant show of displeasure.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” 

“Because you fly, of course. I know Bats has you locked in that cave running reconoscence and sorting his fan mail. But I also know that once in a while, you take a solo cruise around Gotham with that classy high tec droid of yours strapped to your back. I gotta say, purple and black really suit you.” In reply such breezily spoken words, a few tense moments pass with confined, cornered contemplation. 

“... You’re not going to tell him.” Is the bottomline she thinks he reads; it’s a statement, not a question.

“Why on earth would I tell him? I’d feel like an awful sport for ruining your fun. Besides, he doesn’t get to decide when you get out there, you do.” 

“... Thanks.” Somehow, the younger woman had not been expecting that.

“You don’t have to _thank_ me for not being a creepy control freak. That’s complimentary, on the house.”

“Like those pizza bites?” her stomach grumbles impatiently. 

“Clever segway; I’m putting them in right now.” There is an indignant meow and the raven haired woman continues without missing a beat “she’s a guest, Ayesha, I have to feed her, too. Alright, yes, I’ll warm up your salmon in two seconds…” 

Then came about the gentle white noise of Selena Kyle fussing about in her tiny adjacent bachelor kitchen, while Tiffany Foxx sits upon her creaking couch and wonders how the hell things suddenly feel so effortlessly and entirely comfortable. 

Crazier things had happened, the budding vigilante bitterly supposes. 

 

\---

The jagged hushing walls of the Batcave begin to corral and contain the thunder of a rapidly approaching engine. The incognito Batmobile lances down the straight shot line towards its designated parking platform. Inside, the pair of passengers discuss their perilous position. 

“You can’t get it off,” one grumbles with both petulance and murderous intent. 

“Not right away,” replies the other, “I’ll have to run some tests. The last thing I want is tripping that mirco-explosive with a hasty move. If I can avoid it, I would rather not blow your head off.” 

“Oh Bruce, you say the sweetest things! You’ve really got such a way with words, enough to make a guy weak in the knees...” punctuation comes in a few warmly affectionate giggles. The pair of men climb out of the car, and Bruce notes that the Batmobile ride seems to have improved John’s spirits, some. 

“Tell me again why we can’t just deactivate the bomb and take a pair of pliers to this gaudy silver disaster?” he grumbles with shallow irritation, and Bruce isn’t sure if Johnis habitually masking his greater understanding, or if he really was too distracted geeking out over his joyride. 

“Waller explained the science; according to her, the surface of the collar has been layered with an ultra thin membrane that’s composed of several thousand tiny sensory fibers. They detect any extended contact and if a certain amount is exceeded, it starts the countdown to triggering the detonation. Can you stand there, please,” the last bit is mumbled rather gruffly as Bruce makes a sharp gesture to a certain spot near to the Batcomputer. While John puzzles and complies, the tec savvy billionaire begins entering commands into the main console. His mechanical scanner lowers itself smoothly on a single jointed limb, and the flawless rounded lense stares the clownish man down with its single faintly glowing eye. On the screen of the computer, multilayered images of the collar’s concealed tec begins to appear. Calculating numbers run in a stream at the bottom of the monitor, and Bruce is about to sit down and dive into the data proper, when he hears it.

A sharp, warning beep. He turns in time to catch sight of the tiny illuminated numbers appearing on the collar, starting at ten and counting down. 

“That doesn’t sound normal,” John remarks with suspicion, but much less alarm than a sane person should reasonably possess. 

Bruce loses only another moment wondering what could have triggered it. One demanding press of a button ceases the computer’s scan, and the timer on the collar stops at seven seconds. For a few long moments it remains, numbers not unlike that of a digital clock glaring in angered warning. Finally the light fades and Bruce releases a breath he had not known he’d been holding.

“Why the heck did this stupid thing start going off? It’s not just going to blow my head off for no reason, is it?”

“I don’t think so… Somehow the microfiber layer must detect the scanning, which is going to make this a little more difficult than I thought.” 

“Fantastic,” a flat resenting scowl punctuates his grumbling. 

“Hey, don’t worry. We’re gonna figure this out,” Bruce hesitates to bait this particular hook, but he doesn’t want John sliding down the slippery slope of melancholy. He manages not to wince at himself as he adds, “does Batman ever lose?”

“Well… well _no_ ,” John can’t do anything but agree, and Bruce isn’t sure how he feels as he watches the man gaze upon the scar sliced straight through his palm with a chilling black smile. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Right,” Bruce agrees hastily, stealing a moment to clack some keys and shut down the scanning program all together. The day’s earlier debacle feels a million miles away, and Bruce’s blue eyes betray his haggard fatigue. He drops himself onto the firm sleek leather of his computer chair and allows his eyes to briefly blink closed while he breathes the wet stone scented air and tries to find his footing.

What the hell is he supposed to do now?

“So right now… the only way we know how to get this stupid thing off of me is for you to use it.”

“Legitimately,” Bruce adds in an irritable grunt, “whatever the hell that means.” 

“Huh… guess she wants to see you shock me for being _bad_ ,” something in John’s voice snaps Bruce’s eyes open and he’s greeted with the sight of his unlucky buddy sitting easily upon the metal railing and nursing the beginnings of a maddening grin. 

“But what’s considered bad _enough_ , Brucie? What do I have to do to _earn_ my punishment?” with the grace of a large predatory cat John slings himself up off his precarious seat and casually stalks towards the other man. A steely semi-suspicious stare locks onto the approaching man with the growing dare lurking the murky swamps of his eyes. 

“What do you want?” Bruce is caught between agitation and relief; between wanting to trust and knowing better.

“That isn’t super obvious?” and suddenly John slides on top of him, one deceptively strong slender leg on either side of his lap. Cool colourless hands glide up Bruce’s broad chest, and the midnight vigilante finds himself moving in response. His own capable hands swoop around John’s ribs to his back, and scrape down the sulpt of his torso. His grip bites brutally at narrow bleached hips, and Bruce is too tired to determine if he’s trying to stop his self appointed sidekick or encourage him.

Clearly it has the latter effect. 

“You can’t use sex to distract me from everything,” the brooding brunette grumbles, not without a certain smoulder beneath the gruff growl of his tone. 

“Someone’s mind is in the gutter; how do you know I just didn’t want to snuggle?”

“I recognize the look on your face, John. I know when you’re up to something.”

Which is always. The clownish man replies only with a few scattered giggles, leaning closer and sliding his hands into surprisingly well kept tar colored tresses. It’s almost relaxing, until Bruce’s hair is twisted to twine back his head, and John traces the jut of his adam’s apple with his tongue. An involuntary shudder threatens Bruce’s carefully bricked posture as a ragged breath breaks past his lips. Pleasantly prickling heat washes across his skin and flows down his center like an inescapable patient tide. It’s far too easy to linger in the blurry ill-defined space between denial and consent, or perhaps between complacency and encouragement. 

When teeth sink eagerly into the flesh of his throat, Bruce’s beastail impulses have him drag John tight against his chest, locking him in a damn near crushing grip. But the thinner man is overly eager and more than happy to be plastered against that chiseled body with an unyielding grip. A pulsating desperation infects them both like a gradually climbing fever. 

This has all gotten so fucking complicated; Bruce never imagined such entangled drama enclosing when he signed those release papers, but he knows he absolutely should have. He had been lying to himself, in a state of cemented stubborn denial. 

And here he is, fighting the reins that drag him further and further towards the parts of himself he would rather ignore, bleeding from biting the bit and burning from the scorn of the crop for his every attempt to withhold his darker nature. 

So why the actual hell does he even bother?

In the small space of a few seconds Bruce lifts his eager partner as he stands and turns him, flattening John’s front against the smooth horizontal screen that serves as the command console. Brutal impatient hands work in tandem, one pinning the back of a pale neck while the other moves to unbuckle a suddenly severely unwanted belt. For one brief moment, John apparently has no smart ass things to say.

And then that moment ended. 

“What, no dinner? No movie? No _romance_? Honestly Bruce what kind of guy to you think I am?” the man’s inclination to mock spurs the wildfire that’s suddenly consuming all the air between them. 

“Are you asking me to stop?” he calls the bluff with ease and wins a stretched sheepish smile. 

“I didn’t say that exact--” his words end abruptly as strong fingers spear past his lips, plunging into the deviantly hot and wet space of his mouth. A shiver lingers at length beneath John’s goosebump covered skin as the cold cave air licks up his bare legs. His thrift store pants pool in crumples around his feet. 

“Thought so,” Bruce is breathless beneath his growl, curling his fingers and stroking the all too tempting tongue that wriggles beneath. He remembers the burning brutal bliss of being buried balls deep down John’s throat, but this shade of reckless abandon requires something _more_. For sheer physical gratification the taller man wraps his hand around the front of John’s throat and pulls; he’s threatening to cut off his air as he bends the other man back, and shoves his fingers further down the slick sleeve of John’s throat. The way he chokes and shudders and groans is dangerously addictive, and while he had not meant to, Bruce finds himself burning moment after moment fucking the other man’s throat with his fingers. 

It’s only when the bat vigilante’s fingers are slick and dripping with obscene amounts of saliva that his free hand jumps up and slams John back against the console. 

He growls Bruce’s name, impatient and greedy, demanding and pleading. 

A split second later, a sweetly burning pain throbs seductively where a finger is pressed firmly against the tight pucker of John’s asshole. Tension bunches his angular shoulders but he leans back, shamelessly wonton, and pushes himself against those probing, penetrating fingers. 

The breath he takes is quick and sharp when his muscles finally yield and suddenly open and swallow the invading digits. A hiss escapes Bruce as the blazing euphoria rips up every nerve; the _squeeze_ and the _heat_ of John’s body making his dick ache demandingly beneath his expensive suit pants. The half feral fellon shifts restlessly, growling as his fists curl on either side of his head.

“What’s the matter?” he’s attempting to be snarky but his impatience leaves an awful stain, like the precum drooling down the shaft of his dick on to his forgotten pants. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to hurt me,” he laughs like the idea is utterly absurd, but Bruce disrupts the taunting crow with a twist and curl of his questing fingers. John’s laugh dissolves into broken, degraded moans as he sways back, and Bruce begins to spear him a little harder with his slick fingers. A ragged reluctant groan spills from John’s lips and his breath becomes ragged and quick. 

“Is that what you wanted?” the man with the coal coloured hair remarks cooly, forcing a second slick digit into the constricted squeeze of his companion’s simmering flesh. John hisses as another finger is swallowed, and the dull blissful pain shoots volts of electricity down to the tip of his hugely engorged dick. Bruce fucks him that way for far too long, all too well acquainted with the pains of self restraint. His patience begins to pay off when a third finger finds its way into the penetrating bunch and John erupts in sudden shudders. One white fist strikes the console beneath him and a flurry of flustered commands flicker across the screen. Bruce suffers a brief spike of irritation but it’s rather superficial; fleeting, even, as the warm ring of John’s asshole presses slick saliva against his knuckles. 

“More,” John says breathlessly in the murky space between demanding and begging.

“What?” he heard just fine; he only wanted to hear it again.

“ _More_ ,” the other man groans, grinding his hips back in hard edged desperation. 

“Louder,” Bruce remarks with patient, cold demand. A sharp wordless cry of hot blooded frustration flows between John’s gritted teeth. 

“I’ve been waiting so, _so_ patiently for _so_ long,” he snarls, half desperate and half enraged. “I don’t want-- I _can’t_ wait anymore! Fuck me Bruce, fuck me, _fuck me_ \--”

The idea of prolonging such sweet begging is truly alluring, but the carnal need to claim and cum steadily overrides the will for such patient tortures. Firm forceful fingers flex against the instinctive strain of John’s insides, impatience steadily speeding his motions as three bunched fingers lance again and again into the silken suffocating heat of clenched muscle. Watching his fingers disappear in the growingly greedy swallow of the other man’s slick stretched hole all but incinerates the last of his patience. A sudden seductive sadistic urge has Bruce press all the way in to the hilt of his knuckles, and remain as such through a series of grinding jolting thrusts of his arm. When wild frenzy drives John to strike at the console once more, a forceful forbidding hand locks around the other man’s wrist and tugs with sufficient force to flip the paler man onto his back. 

The ghoulishly glad grin convinces Bruce that is is exactly where John wants to be, and he questions the other with a quirk of his crow coloured brow.

“Someone looks comfortable,” he growls with a dangerous undertow, looming over John as he briefly touches the collar, likely to adjust it from where it smacked against the console’s surface. For half a heart beat Bruce worries the additional contact will restart the timer, but whether by John’s quick hands, the sophistication of the technology, or sheer dumb luck, the collar seems unbothered by the very minimal contact. 

Good. Maybe something that can be worked with, later. 

“I just wanted you to have the best view,” John replies with a pretty poison grin, twisting his wrist that remains locked over his head in Bruce’s unyielding grasp. A growl wells up on some sudden primal urge and Bruce leans in a little closer, dizzy on the thrill of freely letting his darkness spill out.

“Fair enough… but you’d look better covered in bruises…” Slender bare legs lift eagerly and cling to the outcrop of Bruce’s hips. Steadily abandoning himself, Bruce works his aching dick from the flat toothed zipper of his pants. The flesh is flushed dark and the shaft feels heavy and damp against his own guiding palm. A moment is spared while Bruce spits into his hand and hastily smears the sparse moisture over his engorged sex; he knows it’s going to hurt John anyway. 

And it makes his balls ache realizing just how _badly_ the other man wants _exactly_ that. Bruce knows deep in his bones how badly his deranged companion needs it to be just like this. Painful. Primal. The feral fucking of wild animals. 

John suffers a few delirious giggles and looks at his best buddy with obsessive devotion.

“That’s a little messed up, friend. You sure you don’t need a little check up from the neck up?”

He doesn’t answer, because denial would taste too much like fiction. Instead, Bruce grasps his cock at the base and guides the turgid tip to the point his fingers are swallowed up by squeezing, sucking heat. The rhythm doesn’t change but when his fingers withdraw, it’s the head of his dick that’s forcing its way through the natural resistance of John’s tightly ringed muscles. Thankfully, _mercifully_ , this seems to silence his smart-assery. Instead, throaty wordless cries rise and crest and shatter upon the damp stone walls, receding to breathless hisses and stubbornly swallowed whimpers. A vicious burning cleaves up John’s center as Bruce’s fat dickhead sinks into him, his asshole stretching to swallow and constricting around the narrower girth of his shaft just beneath. 

Hissing guttural curses fall from each of their panting mouths. John is already shaking again, his knees hugging Bruce’s hips tight and urging him for more, for deeper and crueler abandon; for the sake of slaking Bruce’s sadistic lust. Almost too slowly for either man to bare, inch by inch of Bruce’s pulsating cock sinks deeper into the stifling heat of John’s flesh. His tight clenching asshole bites around the base of Bruce’s dick like a cockring and the pair of them lose the moments that melt between them as the bask in this new carnal connection. Neither of them can breathe; one buried to the hilt, and the other stretched and stuffed. They stare at each other for a single moment of dizzy disbelief, as though neither of them can believe things have come this far. It’s an odd, timeless moment that seems to extend, until abruptly the clownish man jerks forward and crashes their mouths together. The kiss is like a spark running recklessly towards the powderkeg, and suddenly the sounds of wet friction flesh slapping flesh begin to rival the harshly whispering waters. 

“It’s--so-- _deep_ ,” John babbles in staggered, marveling disbelief. In response, powerful hands lock onto paper colored hips and drag them down into an animal buck of his hips. A satisfying cry dissolves into repeated echoes as sheer fevered bliss burns out John’s handle upon himself for a few lingering moments. Bruce is no fool; he knows well enough that John Doe is always more well informed than he lets on; it’s a familiar defence mechanism, unfortunately. In this new terrifying game, part of winning seems to be watching that restraint crumble and Bruce finds himself to instantly and desperately addicted that he moves without thought.

His hips roll in a series of unrelenting jagged jolts, dragging the pucker of the other man’s ass up and down his pulsating sex. Each time Bruce buries himself inside, another shard of a cry tumbles from John’s lips; a sliver of a sound he swallows in stubborn refusal to howl like a mounted animal. 

Bruce feverishly fancies that’s _exactly_ what he’d like to hear. 

“Does it hurt?” his voice is dusk and gravel, devoid of the slightest concern.

“ _Yes_ ,” the reply is rapturous, falling to ruins in the no man’s land between needy request and commanding requisition.

“Do you want me to stop?” the query is a savored taunt; a teasing threat.

“No,” the reply is growled whilst clinging knees lock around Bruce’s hips and pull with slowly slacking strength. “Don’t. You. _Dare_.” John’s commanding composure suffers a few fatal fractures as the moments trickle by with Bruce’s girthy dick twitching yet otherwise still inside of him. 

“Don’t be _rude_ John, where are your manners?” he makes his meaning clear in the emphasis of his words. Ravenous outrage and compliant lust war for ownership of John’s expression, and Bruce takes too great a pleasure in disrupting the battle by twining his hand around the other man’s dick and giving a few firm strokes. The green haired man chokes on whatever reply he may have had, squirming as his attempts for an indignant glare slowly flake and fall from his face. Still his perpetual grin is folded into a hard stubborn scowl, which seems to barely be holding. Oh, there will be none of _this_.

“What do we _say_?” he prompts with sweet rich sadism, pleasure mounting as he forces John closer and closer to what he wants. The bitter pulse pounding stalemate lasts only a few humid moments, until Bruce feels the other man’s cock twitch in his hand and he knows, with unquestioning certainty, that John is thinking about following the unspoken command. Thinking about it, and getting off enough to make his dick drool lewdly over Bruce’s fingers.

“ _Well?_ ” Bruce prompts again with a dark demand that he almost doesn’t recognize. There’s not a spare second to fret on it because whatever had lived in that command finally breaks John’s splintering self control. 

“ _Please_ ,” he forces the words through grinding teeth, and when a beat passes and Bruce makes no move, frustration and pulsating physical demand overflow the man’s penchant for preserving his own unique brand of dignity. 

And suddenly he’s begging in a wonton delirium. 

“ _Please. Don’t. Stop_ ,” the words are forced and jagged but betray the desperation of his need, the senseless madness of his desire. “I’ve waited. So l-long for. You. _Please_ Bruce, _please_ fuck me-- please _don’t stop_ \--” is all the toxic drug of John’s begging that the other man can bare before breaking; bucking his hips he barely feels the sting of the other man’s skin as it repeatedly slaps against him. 

Sharp stinging thrusts seem to follow an endless succession, and for a stray pack of moments there is only the carnal, animal sounds pulled from the cores of the wild mad lovers. Their growling groaning voices follow each other through the echoes like an oddly harmonic round that’s spinning inside the closer of the cave. Soon sweat slides in tiny bright beads down their tangled bodies and they begin to cling to each other with all the desperation that Bruce tries so fiercely to deny. Here, feeling John’s pulse thrum through the flesh wrapped around his aching cock, seeing the poison haze of his undone gaze, and being the object of such ludicrously focused, obsessive desire, there is no escaping the crushing gravity between them. It binds onto every molecule of their beings as the precipice of bliss looms closer and closer to the entwined pair.

Grassy green locks tumble lose from position and stick rather obnoxiously so the sweat stained skin of John’s forehead; pain and pleasure create a beautiful haunting harmony that swells overwhelmingly inside of him. It’s so good to hurt because Bruce wants him to; it’s like a gleeful freefall into the unknown dark of some strange new dimension. John rides the high of the thrill each time he’s so roughly impaled; his kept yet sharp nails are merciless as they bite behind Bruce’s shoulders and drag down, leaving pretty wet tatters of red. It’s good to hurt _him_ too, and John is rewarded by a quick half-gasp of surprise and a particularly brutal thrust that almost makes his legs give out beneath him. 

“Sadist,” Bruce snarls against the other man’s ear.

“Sado _masochist_ ,” John repeats his previous reply with a derailed little chuckle that quickly subsides to groans and cries of intermixed pleasure and pain. He lives in the mysterious ill defined space where pain is soft enough to excite and stimulate, and pleasure is so montersously overbarring it becomes the more discomforting of the two. The physical opposites swirl and twine around each other in compatible opposition, different and yet the very same, like the graceful flow of a yin yang. Drunk on the indescribable sensation John is somehow possessed to move his heavy limbs and lift himself from the support of the console at his back. His own legs hugging Bruce’s hips and his arms locked around broader shoulders are all that support him for the few moments it takes for the other man to move. Arms roped in thick muscle glide up beneath John and hold him steady, and a few moments skitter away while they linger in the dubious position.

Then suddenly employing a grace of physical control that Bruce had long thought abandoned the other, John stretches back a single foot and kicks off the edge of the computer’s keyboard console. The motion disrupts their unsteady balance and Bruce feels his center of gravity shift. There is only a single moment of freefall before the smooth firm leather of Bruce’s computer seat is beneath him and it’s all too easy to disregard any fret of the position change in favor of continuing to devour John’s mouth and plunge relentlessly into him with sudden sharp upwards thrusts. 

The slimmer man hisses as he breaks the savage kiss, leaning back with both hands braced on Bruce’s broader shoulders. There is an unmistakably wicked gleam to his gaze as he grasps on either side of the other man’s collar, and uses the leverage to quicken the speed and deepen the depth of each demanding thrust. Little by little, the pale deviant takes them to greater heights of desperation; the furious fast friction consumes more and more logical thought and leaves only a primal instinctive drive in the ashes. The biting fists upon those narrow marble hips do nothing to stem his wild motions; John grips Bruce’s shoulders harder and stares intensely into his eyes as he continues to ride; lifting himself up, slamming himself down, and bouncing brutally on Bruce’s dick with such feral greedy ferocity that Bruce catches himself by the skin of his teeth from crashing into his climbing climax. 

He knows better than to ask if it hurts, even if something dark in him wants to hear John say it; he _knows_ it does, and he can see just how much John loves every second of it by the shameless strain of his swollen, oozing dick. It bounces with each jerking motion and slaps his pale stomach, leaving small smears and spatters of precum speckled across his skin. A thick fat pearl of moisture traces a particularly lewd path down the shaft of his dick and it spawns a feral hungry fascination. John’s smug controlled motions begin to stutter as again Bruce takes him into his hand. Each of them stagger through the final stretch of their stamina, biting lips and clenched teeth a poor defense to the sounds that began to rise from within them. Their voices lift and crash in a shattering crescendo and their dicks begin to burst in tandem, each man hazily amazed by the white slick seed soaking their skin. Bruce watches it bleed down his fingers and a few greedy motions milk yet more moisture from the tip of John’s dick. It causes his exhausted hips to jolt a little, grinding Bruce’s half-hard, still pulsing sex inside him as they lay on the broken shores of their aftershock. 

Deep hungering kisses communicate desires that their bodies cannot yet follow up. Probing tongues and pressing lips smuggle away one stolen moment after another, until the need to breath becomes too great and they break apart in shared breathlessness. With some sluggish shifting Bruce finally manages to pull himself from the addictive clench of John’s body, and the release a tandem hiss at the air and the emptiness assaults them both. Copious amounts of cum drizzle lewdly down Bruce’s cock and drip heavily from John’s slightly gaping asshole.

“Stay in my room tonight,” it’s _barely_ a request, but one replied to by eager nodding and another pressing sloppy kiss. 

“I thought you’d never ask,” the response is edged in tiny gleeful giggles distorted by the rawness of John’s voice. Why is Bruce asking? Because he _wants_ to, and for once, he will allow that to be reason enough. There are thousands of different ways he could talk himself out of it… but he won’t. Not tonight, while the world hangs suspended far, far away from this heady den of sweat and echoed moans. The consequences may await with the return of the rest of the world; surely sleep will bring the morning, and the morning his regrets. 

But right now, with John lounging lazily in his lap, that ominous moment seems a million miles away. Bruce will steal what little enjoyment ( _happiness_?) he can before everything inevitably falls to ashes by the matches he has struck. 

Lighting the fires that eventually scorch him seem to be just his type of luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOODNESS what a long stretch between updates! Life got really stressful there for a bit and I didn't have it in me to write too much at all. In fact, this chapter probably needs more editing, but I'm just so excited to get it posted for the peeps who have been waiting so long!
> 
> Still I hope it's not too unpolished and I might fix it up some more later >_<;; 
> 
> I don't know where I will posting previews anymore due to Tumblr's no porn nonsense, but I will definitely share that info when I have figured it out!
> 
> As always, I SUPER appreciate comments and kudos from my wonderful readers =) I hope this one was worth waiting for guys, 20 pages of juce for YOU ALL!~ I am SO EXCITED to hear what ya'll think and if ya enjoyed the read!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read my fanfic! 
> 
> I know spelling and proofreading are something I struggle with, so I apologize for any typos I missed. I try my best, and I hope through writing here I'll improve! I will continue to correct mistakes as I catch them, and I appreciate readers being patient with me. 
> 
> Also, this is my first fanfic in like... OMG, almost 15 years? NOW I FEEL OLD. 
> 
> If you feel like leaving a comment, I would especially enjoy knowing what you liked about this fic! What drew you in? Was there anything you wanted to see happen that didn't?
> 
> And is there anyone other than tumble weeds who might be interested in a sequel? 
> 
> PS-- I need a Bruce to RP with my John **eternal sobbing**


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